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THE 


QUEEN’S PROMISE 


BY 

MARY T. WAGGAMAN 

\\ 

Author of “ Jom’s Luck-pot f “ Captain Tedf Etc. 


NEW YORK CINCINNATI CHICAGO 


BENZIGER BROTHERS 

PUBLISHERS OF BENZIGER’S MAGAZINE 
I9II 


Copyright, 1911, by Benziger Brothers. 


CONTENTS, 


PAGE 

CHAPTER I. 

The Little Sackistan 7 

CHAPTER 11. 

The Election 19 

CHAPTER HI. 

Uncle Dave 29 

CHAPTER IV. 

A Day’s Journey 41 

CHAPTER V. 

The New Home 52 

CHAPTER VI. 

Blackstone Ridge. 65 

CHAPTER VII. 

New Lessons 78 

CHAPTER VIII. 

A Break in the Gloom 91 

5 


6 


CONTENTS, 


PAGE 


CHAPTER IX. 

“Anita” 104 

CHAPTER X. 

Stormbeaten 116 

CHAPTER XL 

A Replanting 128 

CHAPTER XII. 

Shadows and Warnings 140 

CHAPTER XIH. 

The Burst of the Storm 151 

CHAPTER XIV. 

Kitty Finds Uncle Dave 163 

CHAPTER XV. 

Life and Love 174 

CHAPTER XVI. 

A Happy Day 187 


THE QUEEN’S PROMISE, 


CHAPTER I. 

THE LITTLE SACRISTAN. 

Spring’s first sweet touch was on St. 
Ursula’s. The soft slopes of the hills were 
blue with violets; the lilacs that hedged the 
playground were plumed with purple and 
white; in the forest paths, the dogwood was 
waving snowy banners ; and the great rosebush 
that wreathed the chapel windows was rich in 
Maytime leaf and bud. 

They are the first to come and last to go 
— the convent fiowers,” said Sister Felicie to 
the little golden-haired girl who stood by the 
sacristy window, scraping the altar candles. 

I’ve known the frost to blacken every gar- 
den around and leave ours all abloom. And 
many a year we’ve had the ^ Queen’s Promise ’ 
roses for the Midnight Mass. But no wonder : 
it’s God’s own fiower, as you know, Kitty.” 

7 


8 


THE LITTLE SACEISTAK 


Yes, Kitty and all the convent girls knew 
the old legend of the Queen’s Promise, that in 
a few weeks now would make the chapel wall 
a bower of fragrant bloom. 

Long, long ago, in the old lands across the 
sea, there had been a proud, worldly queen 
who had planned her daughter’s marriage to 
a great and powerful prince. But the young 
girl herself begged permission to enter the 
convent that stood in the valley below. Our 
Lady of the Thistles ” it was called, from 
the great prickly hedges that shielded its quiet 
cloisters from rude approach. And the queen- 
mother, on hearing her daughter’s prayer, 
flew into a fury and swore, as royal ladies 
were at times heard to swear in those far-off 
times, that not until the thistles turned into 
roses should her daughter enter the convent 
door. She must marry the prince, in obe- 
dience to her command, the very next day. 

All night long the poor girl spent in tears 
before the altar; and next morning, so the 
legend tells, the convent garden was hedged 
with the fragrant bloom of a rose that none 
had ever seen before. The worldly queen, 
frightened at this touch of a hand mightier 


THE LITTLE SACRISTAN. 


9 


than her own, yielded her proud will to that 
of God; and the wonderful rose, known there- 
after as the Queen’s Promise,” was trans- 
planted by slips and shoots to other convent 
gardens ; and even brought, by the good 
French Sisters who had founded St. Ursula’s, 
to this new land across the sea. 

What Sister Felicie and her little assistant 
sacristan, Kitty Dillon, would have done 
without the white bloom of the Queen’s Prom- 
ise for the convent altar, no one could say. 

“ Dear, dear, I’ve taken down the wrong 
vestments ! It’s white and silver for to- 
morrow,” said Sister Felicie. “ But I’m keep- 
ing you too long, Kitty dear,” — as a burst of 
merry voices came from the playground be- 
low. “ You ought to be down there with the 
rest.” 

Oh, no, no. Sister ! ” replied Kitty quickly. 
“ I would rather stay and help you. Let me 
rub up the censer and change the flowers in 
the white vases. We have so many lovely lilacs 
to-day ! ” 

As you please, then, Kitty. It’s not every 
little girl I’d have in the sacristy, you know.” 

Yes, Kitty knew, and valued her privilege 


10 


THE LITTLE SACRISTAN. 


accordingly. It was not only that a beauti- 
ful premium prayer-book was awarded every 
year to Sister Felicie’s little sacristan, but 
the office had a sweet charm all its own. The 
high-ceilinged room, with its panelled closets, 
its Gothic window, its fragrance of dying 
flowers and lingering incense, seemed a place 
apart from the noisy, busy school-life of 
class-room and playground. And its tender 
shadows were especially sweet to poor little 
Kitty of late; for, only thirteen though she 
was, her young heart was still sore with a 
heavy grief. Three months ago her dear 
father’s ship had gone down in a terrible 
storm on the Pacific; and Captain Dillon, 
holding his post of duty to the last, had left 
his long motherless Kitty orphaned indeed in 
her convent home. 

The Sisters had done all they could to com- 
fort the desolate little girl, who had been 
with them since she was seven years old. But 
this brave, kind father had been the hero and 
idol of Kitty’s life; his generous love had 
furnished not only all the needful things, 
but feasts and frolics and pocket-money un- 
stinted ; his visits had been holidays of delight 


THE LITTLE SACRISTAN. 


11 


unspeakable, which Kitty could not even 
think of now without tears. 

And in those first strange, dark days, 
when Kitty knew that all this love had been 
swept away from her, when it was quite im- 
possible to talk or laugh or play with the 
other girls, the sweet, dim, old sacristy seemed 
a shelter like that of a pitying angel’s wing. 

But Time is tender to little mourners of 
thirteen, and Kitty was beginning to bloom 
and brighten again with the flowers of spring. 

u The girls are going to vote for May Queen 
this evening. Sister.” 

Ah, indeed ! ” said Sister Felicie, with a 
nod. ‘‘ Then there are lively times downstairs, 
I know. And who is it to be, Kitty dear? ” 
Oh, I can’t tell yet ! ” answered Kitty, 
who was busy with the white lilacs now. I 
want Jeanie Riggs. She is so sweet and pretty 
and would make such a lovely Queen. But 
Nellie Marr is trying for it hard. She treated 
to fudge three times last week, though she 
may not mean anything by that. I — I treated 
to fudge myself when — when — I had papa.” 
And there was a break in the young voice that 
went to Sister Felicie’s kind heart. 


12 


THE LITTLE SACRISTAK 


Ah, well, well ! ” said the good nun, 
anxious to steer her little assistant clear of 
these sad memories. Nellie Marr and her 
fudge may get the votes; but I know who 
should be Queen if I had my say, and that 
is your own little self, Kitty dear ! 

“ O Sister, no, no ! I wouldnT do at all,’^ 
answered Kitty. The May Queen must 
have a beautiful new dress, all lace and 
ruffles, and slippers and sash, and everything 
lovely. I — I — can’t get anything now — now 
that my dear papa is gone.” And the tears 
Kitty could no longer repress burst forth in 
a springtime flood as she flung herself on her 
knees beside Sister Felicie and hid her face 
on the good nun’s breast. “ O papa, — my own 
dear papa ! ” she sobbed brokenly. Some- 
times I can’t believe it. Sister. It seems like 
a sad dream, and I must wake up and 
find he is coming back. I just can’t believe 
I shall never, never have my dear papa 
again.” 

“ But you will, Kitty dear, — ^you will ! ” said 
Sister Felicie, her own kind eyes dim. 

“ Oh, in heaven, I know ! ” sobbed Kitty. 

But that is so long — so far, — and I am only 


THE LITTLE SACRISTAN. 


13 


a little girl, Sister. The Sisters are good to 
me, I know; but I can^t stay here all my life, 
and there is no one to care for me in all this 
big, wide world.’’ 

No one, Kitty? ” asked Sister Felicie, pity- 
ingly. Haven’t you uncles or aunts or any- 
body? ” 

Only Uncle Dave, papa’s brother ; and he — 
he — doesn’t count,” said Kitty. 

My dear child, yes, uncles count a great 
deal sometimes to a little girl,” was the cheer- 
ing answer. 

Oh, Tfie doesn’t ! ” said Kitty, shaking her 
head. I’ve never seen him. Papa and he 
quarrelled before I was born. It was not 
papa’s fault, I know,” continued Kitty, with 
loving loyalty. Papa was always jolly and 
nice and kind to everybody. He used to laugh 
and say Uncle Dave was a blue-nosed bigot 
that couldn’t see straight. It was all about 
papa’s marrying a Catholic. Uncle Dave said 
horrid things about mamma; and papa loved 
her so, that when she died he couldn’t forgive 
or forget.” 

Ah, that was too bad, — too bad ! ” said Sis- 
ter Felicie, dimly realizing something of the 


14 


THE LITTLE SACRISTAN. 


human passion and pain of such a ruptura 
Poor Kitty ! But yet, dear 

“May I come in?” interrupted a pleasant 
voice at the sacristy door. 

“ My dear Mother Paula, of course ! ” And 
Sister Felicie rose hurriedly to greet the 
superioress. 

“ Don’t move. Sister. You are very busy to- 
day, I know; and I don’t want to interrupt 
you. It is this little sacristan of yours I am 
looking for. I have a letter with wonderful 
news for you, Kitty.” 

“ Wonderful news ! ” echoed Kitty, and her 
cheeks flushed, her blue eyes kindled. “ O 
Mother, about — about papa?” For the beau- 
tiful Angel Hope still fluttered sometimes 
across Kitty’s darkened sky. 

“ My poor dear child, no, no ! ” said Mother 
quickly. “ The letter is from your uncle, 
Kitty. I did not know you had one. David 
Dillon, he signs himself, — your father’s 
brother.” 

“A letter from Uncle Dave?” repeated 
Kitty, in faltering tones. 

“ Yes, dear, — a short, rather strange letter ; 
but kindly intended, I am sure. It came by 


THE LITTLE SACRISTAN. 15 

the last mail. I will read it to you, 
Kitty.’’ 

And, seating herself on one of the tall carved 
chairs in the sacristy. Mother Paula drew 
Kitty to her side, that she might see the letter 
in her hand. It was written in very black ink, 
and the plain, stiff handwriting seemed fairly 
to bristle from the paper: 

To THE Lady Principal op the Ursula Female 

Academy. 

Dear Madam: — I understand from Messrs. Taft 
and Woodville, Attorneys at Law, 1408 Court Street, 
that my brother, the late Captain John Dillon, has 
left a daughter, orphaned and penniless, in your 
care. As the nearest of kin, I am her natural and 
legal guardian, and as such am prepared to accept 
my responsibilities. Kindly notify my niece Kath- 
erine that I will see her as soon as pressing business 
engagements permit. In the meantime, please make 
out all bills, present or in arrears, for board, cloth- 
ing, tuition, and so forth, to David P. Dillon, Black- 
stone Ridge, Pa. 

I remain. Madam, 

Your obedient servant, 

David P. Dillon, 

There ! ” said Mother Paula, the note of 


16 


THE LITTLE SACRISTAN. 


cheer in her voice a little forced. What do 
you think of that, Kitty dear? ” 

“ Oh, I — I — don^t know ! said Kitty, with 
a little gasp. I don’t think I like it at all.” 

Oh, don’t say that, Kitty ! ” But the kind 
Mother’s arm about the little girl tightened 
its hold, as if it would keep her close in that 
sheltering clasp. It may sound a little stiff 
and strange ; and, really,” Mother Paula broke 
into a soft little laugh, I had to read it 
twice before I recognized myself as a Lady 
Principal. But we can’t always judge by the 
tone of a letter. Your uncle is, no doubt, a 
plain business man, who writes in a plain busi- 
ness way. You see, my child,” and Mother 
Paula ventured to touch upon a subject that 
had been tenderly kept from the little orphan’s 
consideration, “your dear father’s business 
affairs were quite unsettled, and it is supposed 
he had most of his valuable papers, with a 
large sum of money, on the Hispania with him ; 
and so he has left his little girl unprovided 
for. This good uncle is ready to take his place 
and give you all that you need. So we must 
accept his kindness in the spirit in which it is 
offered, and be grateful that the good God has 


THE LITTLE SACRISTAN. 17 

sent you a guardian and protector in your 
need.” 

Oh, but he didnT like my mamma ! He 
quarrelled with papa. They had not seen or 
spoken to each other since I was born,” sobbed 
Kitty. He can’t like me.” 

Mother Paula paused a moment, a little 
startled by that outburst of family history, 
which threw a rather ominous light on the 
style of Mr. David Dillon’s letter. Then she 
went on cheerily. 

That doesn’t follow at all, my child. Per- 
haps, for that very reason, his heart will turn 
to you to atone for the past. But, in any case, 
we must teach him to like us, you know. 
You are just the sweet, loving, good little girl 
to make a conquest of a stern, lonely, perhaps 
even a hardened old heart.” 

But, O Mother, I don’t like to be ^ niece 
Katherine ’ ! ” cried Kitty. 

Tut, tut ! ” laughed Mother Paula, whose 
gay good sense made sunshine all about her. 

How can you expect the poor man to know 
our pet name for you, Kitty dear! Come 
now, dry your eyes, and we will go into the 
chapel together and thank our dear Lord for 


18 


THE LITTLE SACRISTAH. 


all His blessings. We must take them as He 
sends them, though they are not always ex- 
actly what we should choose ourselves. But 
if we do our part bravely and faithfully, and 
trust to Him, we shall find, after all, that He 
knows best.’’ 

And, taking Kitty’s hand in hers, the good 
Mother passed through the arched doorway 
that led into the convent chapel, where the 
sunset was streaming through the great win- 
dow over the altar, filling the sweet white 
sanctuary with rainbow light. And, still 
holding the trembling little hand, Mother 
Paula knelt at the altar and prayed, a fear 
in her mother-heart which she would not have 
little orphaned Kitty guess. For there had 
been a chill in Uncle Dave’s letter that seemed 
to her like the bitter, biting breath from the 
frozen peaks of the Arctic zone. 


CHAPTER II. 


THE ELECTION. 

Then, as the Office bell summoned Mother 
Paula and Sister Felicie, Kitty went down 
into the playground, where party spirit was 
running high. The election for May Queen ’’ 
was an occasion second in excitement only to 
Commencement Day at St. Ursula’s. Little 
knots of voters stood about on tennis court 
and croquet ground, chattering volubly. 
Nellie Marr, a tall, handsome girl of fourteen, 
was surrounded by a crowd of loyal followers ; 
and Jeanie Riggs — a shock of disappointment 
went through Kitty, — even Jeanie Riggs was 
bargaining without shame with three small 
voters. 

You promised me, you know, Patty ; and 
you, too, Floy; and I’ll give you the paper 
dolls, and cut them out besides — and — ” 
Jeanie stopped suddenly as she caught sight 
of Kitty. Run off ! ” she whispered to the 
19 


20 


THE ELECTION. 


children. ^‘And donT — forget now, and vote 
for Nellie Marr ! ’’ 

Jeanie, herself in evident confusion, put her 
arm coaxingly around Kitty^s waist. 

You poor darling I YouVe been crying 
again, Kitty; and no wonder. Shut up in 
that gloomy old sacristy all the evening ! I^d 
as lief stay in the confessional.” 

Oh, it isnT that, Jeanie ! I love the 
sacristy and Sister Felicie. But I^ve heard 
something — oh, just dreadful ! ” 

Don’t tell me somebody else is dead ! ” 
cried Jeanie, in dismay. 

Oh, no, no ! But Mother Paula has had a 
letter from Uncle Dave, and he is coming to 
see me — and — and take care of me. Oh, I 
don’t like it at all ! ” 

You don’t!” exclaimed Jeanie, breath- 
lessly. “ Why, Kitty Dillon, I think it is 
something perfectly grand! An uncle is the 
finest thing to have in the world. And he is 
coming here and going to take care of you! 
O Kitty darling, I am so glad ; for you’ve had 
so much trouble this year ; you certainly 
deserve something lovely to happen. And it 
will,” said Jeanie, with a little jubilant 


THE ELECTIOl^. 21 

laugh. We are going to give you such a 
surprise.^’ 

^‘Not a birthday party, Jeanie!” said 
Kitty, in a trembling voice. Oh, don^t let 
the girls chip in and give me a birthday party 
this year! Papa always sent me money for 
one before; but please don’t now. It — it 
would just break my heart.” 

We won’t,” said Jeanie. “ We’re not 
thinking of a birthday party. But I won’t 
say another word, or I’ll let the cat out of the 
bag; and I’m not quite — quite sure yet. 
There! Sister Carmel is ringing for us to 
come into the study-hall to vote for the May 
Queen. O Kitty” (Jeanie pressed her hand 
to her heart excitedly), ^‘if Nellie Marr 
should get it, — if she should get it, after all! 
She has been fairly stuffing the little ones 
with caramels. If she should get the vote. 
I’ll burst right out crying, I know.” 

O Jeanie, don’t ! ” said Kitty, quite ap- 
palled at such unseemly weakness in a candi- 
date for queenly honors. “ I — I didn’t think 
you cared so much.” 

‘‘Oh, but I do, — I do!” answered Jeanie, 
“It will just break my heart if Nellie Marr 


22 


THE ELECTION. 


wins. I^ve got all the nicest girls^ votes, I 
know ; but there is a crowd I can^t quite count 
on, — little girls that haven’t much sense. But 
come on, Kitty; we shall soon know the best 
or worst.” 

And they hurried in with the rest, — Kitty 
a little shocked, we must confess, at Jeanie’s 
eagerness. But then, crown and throne are 
prizes that have turned wiser heads than 
Jeanie’s, as Kitty knew; so she could 
only hope with all her loving heart for 
victory. 

Sister Carmel stood at her desk ready to 
preside at the election. As the girls filed past 
her, she handed each one a slip of paper and 
pencil. There was a breathless hush as they 
took their places around the great room. 
Nellie Marr held her black head high with 
studied indifference; but Jeanie’s sweet face 
was flushed, her lips trembling with suspense 
she could not conceal. 

Oh, I didn’t think she cared so much ! ” 
thought Kitty, in sorrowful wonder. And 
if she does break down and cry before every- 
body, it will be dreadful.” 

And the fear of this public disaster for her 


THE ELECTION 


23 


dear Jeanie quite dulled Kitty to all interest 
in everything else. 

Now, dear children,” Sister Carmel was 
saying, “ you are about to vote for your May 
Queen, an honor which you yourselves confer 
upon that one of your companions whom you 
feel best deserves it by her gentleness, kind- 
ness, and general popularity in the school. 
Each girl will now write upon the slip of 
paper the name of her choice.” 

It was an exciting moment. A little mur- 
mur of whispering and tittering went around 
the room, as the girls scribbled away at their 
ballots ; and some of the smaller ones, unused 
to election privileges, sidled up to Sister 
Carmel for help. 

And now Sister Carmel gathered in the 
votes. Jeanie’s name, in big, round letters, 
was on Kitty’s paper, and awful apprehension 
of Jeanie’s defeat in Kitty’s loyal little 
heart. 

Silence for a few moments, children, 
while I count the votes,” said the Sister. 

And Kitty forgot all her own troubles, even 
Uncle Dave and his letter and his niece 
Katherine,” as, with dilating eyes, she watched 


24 


THE ELECTION. 


Sister CarmeFs white fingers sorting the bal- 
lots. There were three — four — five piles; but 
one was growing higher every moment until 
it stood far above the rest. 

Sister Carmel dropped the last ballot, and 
turned to her breathless audience with a glad 
smile. 

A majority of twenty-three votes. I am 
happy to announce Kitty Dillon your Queen 
of the May.” 

And then — then Sister CarmeFs conclave, as 
she laughingly termed it, broke loose indeed. 
Order was at an end. 

“ Kitty — Kitty — dear old Kitty ! ” went up 
a joyous chorus, as friends and classmates 
crowded around the Queen-elect. 

Oh, we^re so glad ! We wanted you so 
much! I voted for you.” 

'' And I ! ” 

And I! ” 

And I ! ” 

While Jeanie, laughing and crying indeed, 
but in pure delight, caught Kitty fast in her 
arms. 

“ DidnT I tell you something lovely was 
going to happen, Kitty? Oh, my heart has 


THE ELECTION. 


25 


been nearly jumping out of my mouth! We 
got it for her; didn’t we, girls? ” 

Twenty-three majority ! I didn’t expect 
that much,” remarked another. But no one 
can say a word now. It’s fair and square: 
two-thirds ” 

Oh, I never dreamed, — I never thought of 
this ! ” said Kitty, as soon as she could find 
breath and wits to speak. I thought — I 
hoped it would be you, Jeanie.” 

I! ” laughed that little arch lobbyist, 
merrily. I ! Never! It has been you from 
the first.” 

Then blushing Kitty was borne forward by 
a crowd of loyal subjects to receive Sister 
Carmel’s congratulations, and two or three 
of the madcap set seized the class bell and be- 
gan to peal it jubilantly; while merry shouts 
for “ Queen Kitty ! ” rose from porch and 
playground. 

Thrilling days of preparation followed, with 
the harps and mandolins practising the Coro- 
nation Chorus,” and boxes arriving with 
gowns and ribbons and slippers for all the 
girls, and Kitty’s own queenly robes demand- 
ing serious and delightful consideration. 


26 


THE ELECTION. 


Sister Leonie herself went to work on them, 
and what Sister Leonie^s little French fingers 
could not do was really not worth doing. 
With its frills, its lace, its tucks, its ribbons, 
Kitty^s gown, when completed, was dainty 
enough for a fairy queen. Slippers and sash 
were there, too; for, as Mother Paula ex- 
plained, Uncle Dave wished his niece to have 
everything that was customary. And so under 
the spell of these happy days even the thought 
of Uncle Dave grew almost pleasant. 

He is a very wealthy man, I hear,” Mother 
Paula said. Father Davis has been up at 
Blackstone Ridge to say Mass for the hands, 
— your uncle employs a great many. He is 
able to give you everything you want, 
Kitty.” 

Kind Mother Paula did not add more. 
Father Davis had told her much that chilled 
her loving heart with fear. “ Old Flint 
Dillon,” as his hands ” called him, was as 
hard and stern and unyielding as the rocky 
ridge upon which he lived, and which fiamed 
night and day with the fierce fire of his fur- 
naces, where men toiled at his will, without 
hope or joy or rest. It was a dreary picture, 


THE ELECTION. 


27 


and one in which Mother Paula hoped little 
Kitty would never have a place. 

And now at last the beautiful day had 
come that was to see Kitty crowned and 
throned. Never had there been a lovelier 
queen, as even Nellie Marr and her clique 
agreed. With all her soft golden hair 
loosened, in her dainty, lace-trimmed gown 
and fluttering ribbons, little Kitty, who had 
been in black all winter, seemed like a flower 
just opening to the sun. 

There was first the May procession, six of 
the tiniest girls in the school scattering Kitty’s 
way with flowers, while she carried the white 
banner of our Blessed Mother through gar- 
den and grove to the little grotto in the 
woods, where a crown of white violets was 
laid at that dearest Queen’s feet; then back 
again to the green slopes of the lawn, where 
the May throne arose, a very bower of spring- 
time bloom, arched with apple blossoms and 
wild laurel, and carpeted with daisy-strewn 
mosses; for Queen Kitty’s subjects had been 
out claiming tribute from every field and 
grove within their reach. Such a pretty 
court as it was that stretched in white-robed 


28 


THE ELECTION. 


ranks around the little sovereign, crown- 
bearer and sceptre-bearer and banner-bearer, 
flower girls and maids of honor ; for May Day 
at St. Ursula^s had traditions that dated 
back to great-grandmother days, when the 
first Sisters came from France. 

And when at last, after all the “ addresses 
were properly made, and Kitty knelt before 
Mother Paula to receive her flower crown, the 
harps and mandolins burst into glad music, 
and through grove and garden swelled a 
chorus of silvery young voices in the Corona- 
tion Chorus, “ Vive la Heine de Mai ! ” 

So full and clear and sweet was the music 
that no one heard the jangle of Sister Jacinta^s 
big keys as the Sister portress came hurrying 
to Mother Paula^s side. Just as Queen Kitty, 
holding her lily sceptre, took her seat upon 
her flower throne, the kind mother-voice 
spoke. 

“ It is too bad just now, but our Queen must 
leave us for a few moments, my children. 
You are wanted in the parlor, Kitty dear. 
Your uncle has come and wishes to see you 
at once.” 


CHAPTER III. 


UNCLE DAVE. 

Uncle Dave ! ’’ The soft flush of happi- 
ness died in the little Queen^s face as she 
turned wide, startled eyes on Mother Paula. 

He can not stay long, he says,’’ was the re- 
assuring answer ; “ so you will come back to 
your court in a little while. And he could 
not have come at a better time, I am sure,” 
continued the good Mother, with a loving 
glance at the pretty little flgure at her side. 

For Queen Kitty to-day was surely a pic- 
ture to delight any uncle’s eye and win his 
heart. The soft, floating golden hair, the 
flower crown, the dainty dress, the lily scep- 
tre, — Mother Paula felt that, if Uncle Dave 
were not armor-plated with his own iron, he 
would be conquered at first sight. But the 
gentle Mother did not realize that there are • 
slow flres within men’s breasts that can forge 
armor harder and colder than steel. 

So run on, Queen Kitty, and don’t be 


30 


UNCLE DAVE. 


afraid of Uncle Dave,” said Mother Paula, 
cheerily. 

And Kitty hurried on up the green slopes 
that were still echoing with her triumph, 
through the long halls, and into the convent 
parlor, that seemed strangely dim and still 
after the bright scene she had just left. 

A tall, square-shouldered man stood there 
looking out of the window, his hands thrust 
in his pockets. Kitty saw only his back, and 
her poor little heart leaped in her breast, — 
the sturdy figure was so like papa. Then he 
turned, and the young heart fell again like 
lead. That grim old face, those cold gray eyes 
beneath the heavy, grizzled brows, were very 
different from papa indeed. 

There was a moment’s silence. For her 
life Kitty could not have moved or spoken; 
she could only stand there wide-eyed and 
breathless, a startling vision indeed to the 
cold eyes that were taking her in from top to 
toe. 

So,” said Uncle Dave at last, this is 
my niece Katherine?” 

“ Ye-yes, Uncle Dave,” the little girl found 
voice to falter. 


I 


UNCLE DAVE. 


31 


He winced at the name, — the old boyish 
name. It had been long since he had heard 
it. He had been only Old Dillon,’’ Old 
Flint,” for many cold, hard years. 

You seem quite — quite a good-sized girl. 
Niece Katherine.” (Oh, how gruff and strange 
was the voice!) How old are you?” 

I shall be thirteen next month. Uncle 
Dave,” answered Kitty, faintly. It was so 
hard to speak ! Far away she could hear the 
gay music pulsing joyously; but all around 
her there seemed a hush that it was dreadful 
to break with a word. 

Thirteen ! ” repeated Uncle Dave with 
an odd start. I can scarcely believe it has 
been so long — so long. Thirteen years ! ” 
And then he stopped for a moment and went 
on in a harsher voice : “ Well, Niece Kather- 
ine, I suppose you understand that I am your 
guardian now?” 

Ye-yes, sir,” faltered Kitty. Mother 
Paula told me that — that — I mean she ex- 
plained everything.” 

“ I am glad to hear it. I was afraid that I 
should find you too much of a baby to under- 
stand. I am a plain, gruff man, as you see, 


32 


UNCLE DAVE. 


Niece Katherine, and can^t talk anything but 
plain, hard sense, with no folderols. We want 
to start on this deal fair and square, so I 
don’t mind telling you that if there was any 
one else to take care of you I wouldn’t be in 
the business. But there is nobody else, so 
we’ll have to make the best of a forced bargain. 
I mean to do the right thing by you, and I 
expect you to do the right thing by me.” 

I’ll — I’ll try, sir,” replied Kitty, feeling 
as if she were talking in some dreadful dream. 

To begin with, I don’t like convents,” said 
Uncle Dave, curtly. ‘‘No money of mine 
goes into the pockets of Popish priests or 
nuns. Do you understand that? ” 

No, Kitty did not. She was too shocked, too 
bewildered by this sudden attack on all that 
she held dear, quite to take in Uncle Dave’s 
meaning. She could only stand there speech- 
less, with wide-open eyes; while she grasped 
her lily sceptre, as if it somehow held her up 
in a quaking, changing world. 

“ When does this school of yours break up? ” 
was Uncle Dave’s next question. 

“ Next — month,” Kitty found voice at last 
to answer. 


UNCLE DAVE. 


33 


In that case, we may as well break it up 
at once, then,” said her new guardian, de- 
cisively. I can’t possibly come down here 
again next month, so I will take you back 
with me now. You will stay at Blackstone 
Ridge for the summer, and then we shall see 
what is to be done next. But it won’t be a 
Popish convent, remember that! I’ve heard 
too much about them, — altogether too much. 
What sort of a folderol rig is that they have 
pht on you to-day? Are you playing angel, 
saint, or what? ” 

“O Uncle Dave — no— no!” (Kitty’s 
voice was very close to a hysterical break 
now. ) I am May Queen. The girls all 

voted for me, and Mother crowned me, — and 
— and ” 

The speaker could go no further. She 
stopped in time to save a burst of tears. Far 
away, she could hear the music sounding; the 
girls were dancing the Maypole ” now, she 
knew; but their poor little Queen was apart 
from it, in a gray wintry world, where all was 
cold and grim. 

May Queen? Humph! There’ll be no 
May Queening at Blackstone Ridge,” said 


34 


UNCLE DAVE. 


Uncle Dave, gruffly. But you can have a 
pony if you like. Did you ever have a 
pony? 

No, sir,’^ answered Kitty, shaking her 
flower-crowned head. 

“And dogs, — do you like dogst’’ 

“ I don’t think I do, sir,” was the trembling 
answer. 

“ Well, it’s a pity you don’t; for there’s not 
much else to like at Blackstone Ridge either 
for young or old.” And Uncle Dave’s shaggy 
brows met in a beetling frown, as if he were 
thinking of something more unpleasant than 
usual. “ But it’s your home now. Niece 
Katherine, and you’ll have to make the best 
of it. So pack your trunk and be ready to 
start with me to-morrow. I’ll be here at ten 
thirty sharp. Don’t keep me waiting. Time 
is money with me. Niece Katherine; and I 
don’t fool either away, as you’ll And. Ten 
thirty sharp, remember ! ” 

And he was gone. White, cold, trembling, 
Kitty stood where he had left her, until she 
heard his heavy tread on the stone steps with- 
out ; then, dropping into the chair nearest her, 
she let fall her lily sceptre and burst into the 


UNCLE DAVE. 


35 


wild, hysterical tears she could no longer re- 
strain, — tears such as she had never shed 
before, not even when she had heard her dear 
papa had gone from her forever. For then 
loving friends had broken the sad news to 
her, kind arms had clasped the desolate 
orphan, sweet voices had whispered holy 
words of comfort and hope. Now there was 
no love, no pity, no light in the black gloom 
before her; and Kitty’s tears burst forth in a 
bitter flood that seemed to sweep away past, 
present, and future into a great gulf of dark- 
ness and despair, where Uncle Dave stood 
alone, grim and frowning, hating all that she 
loved. 

Kitty! Kitty! Kitty! Why, my dear 
child ! ” Mother Paula’s cheery call changed 
into startled sympathy as, entering the room, 
she caught sight of the crumpled heap of lace 
and rufiles in the big armchair. “ What is the 
matter, Kitty? ” 

O Mother, Mother ! ” The hapless little 
Queen sprang up and flung herself sobbing 
and trembling into the questioner’s arms. “ I 
can’t come — I can’t be Queen any more to- 
day. Oh, I can never, never be happy again ! 


36 


UN'CLE DAVE. 


My heart is breaking, — my heart is breaking, 
Mother ! ” 

“ My poor child ! ” there was tender com- 
prehension in the mother-tone. Come sit 
down ! ” The speaker drew Kitty beside her 
on the parlor sofa. Why, you are trembling 
like a leaf! Tell me all about it. Was not 
Uncle Dave kind?’’ 

Oh, no, no ! He was d-r-e-a-d-f-u-1 ! ” the 
word was stretched by a long, shivering sigh. 
“ You can’t think how dreadful ! ” 

Perhaps Mother Paula could, for she had 
formed her own opinion of Uncle Dave several 
weeks ago ; but she was too wise to say all she 
thought. 

How ^dreadful,’ Kitty?” she asked 
gently. 

“ Oh, so cross, so rough, so ugly ! ” answered 
Kitty, with a shudder. ‘‘And he said such 
dreadful things, such wicked things about 
convents and priests and everything I love. 
And — and” (with a fresh outburst of tears) 
“ he is going to take me away from St. Ursula’s 
forever — forever ! ” 

There was a moment’s silence, and the arm 


UNCLE DAVE. 


37 


that clasped motherless Kitty tightened its 
tender hold. 

When, Kitty? ” asked Mother Paula, in 
a low voice. 

To-morrow,” was the sobbing answer. 

“So soon?” said Mother Paula, startled. 
“ Won^t he let you stay until Commencement 
Day? ” 

“ No,” replied Kitty, hopelessly. “ He says 
he canT come back for me, and I must go with 
him at ten thirty to-morrow — ” And the 
speaker's voice broke as it set the hour of 
doom. 

“ Did you ask him to let you stay? ” 

“ Oh, I couldn’t ask him anything ! It 
seemed as if I choked up and couldn’t speak. 
O Mother, keep me with you, — keep me, 
please! I’ll work in the kitchen like Norah 
Flynn. I’ll scrub the knives and the floors. 
I’ll do anything if you will only keep me 
from Uncle Dave ! ” 

“ My dear little Kitty, we would if we 
could. Your uncle is your natural, your legal 
guardian, and we have no right to keep you 
against his will.” 

“Oh” (Kitty raised her tear-stained face. 


38 


UNCLE DAVE. 


and in the soft eyes there was a look which 
the good Mother had never seen before), “I 
just hate Uncle Dave ! ” she whispered. 

Kitty ! Kitty ! You don^t know what you 
are saying.’’ 

It’s a sin, I know,” answered Kitty, trem- 
bling ; but I do — I do. I can’t help it. 
Mother. And I’d rather die than go with him 
to his horrid old Blackstone Ridge. I’d rather 
die to-night.” 

Was it the gentle little Queen of May who 
looked up at Mother with such strange light 
in her eyes? Was it Sister Felicie’s little 
sacristan that spoke like this? Mother Paula 
was dismayed. What if Uncle Dave should 
wake in this young breast some spirit of fierce 
defiance akin to his own? 

Kitty, Kitty,” she said sadly, this sounds 
as if our little girl was going from us indeed ! ” 
And then, drawing her closer to her. Mother 
Paula spoke to Kitty softly, tenderly, in 
sweet tones, that seemed to fall upon the poor 
little bruised heart like dew upon a crushed 
flower. 

When she flnished, Kitty was crying 
quietly ; but the strange light had gone out of 


UNCLE DAVE. 39 

the blue eyes, the strange bitterness from the 
young voice. 

Love him ! ’’ she echoed sorrowfully. 

Love Uncle Dave and make him love me! 
Oh, he never will, I know! But I will try. 
Mother. It will be very hard, but I will try 
to do all you say.” 

It is a promise, then?” As Mother 
Paula bent to kiss the little girl, a tear from 
her kind eyes fell upon the sweet uplifted 
brow. It is a ^ Queen^s Promise,’ remember, 
Kitty. Come now ! ” she went on more 
blithely. We must not mope here any 
longer. Your subjects are waiting for you. 
Queen Kitty. Take up your lily sceptre and 
come back to your throne.” 

Ah, it was a wonderful evening, that first 
and last of Queen Kitty’s reign! The lights, 
the music, the dancing, the feasting, the 
thrilling excitement that went through St. 
Ursula’s when it was known that Kitty was to 
leave to-morrow for an indefinite holiday with 
her rich uncle, — all combined to fiing daz- 
zling rainbow light over the broken storm- 
clouds which Mother Paula had scattered. 

And, for once in the annals of St. Ursula, 


40 


UNCLE DAVE. 


the May holiday stretched far into the next 
morning, when, at the ominous hour of ten 
thirty. Queen Kitty’s whole court, headed by 
Jeanie Riggs, stood on the wide porch of St. 
Ursula’s, waving loyal adieux to the little 
sovereign, who, seated in the carriage beside 
Uncle Dave, was looking through a mist of 
tears at the dear convent home she was leav- 
ing — perhaps forever. 

The black dress had replaced the royal robes 
of the previous day; a black sailor hat had 
supplemented the regal crown; but tucked in 
Kitty’s belt by dear Mother Paula’s loving 
fingers was a spray of the Queen’s Promise,” 
its tender buds, close-folded as yet, mossy 
green. Would they open in the strange world 
to which Uncle Dave was taking her, and 
would Mother Paula’s little convent flower 
wither, heart and soul, in its chilling blight? 


CHAPTEK IV. 


A data's journey. 

It was a long day’s journey to Blackstone 
Kidge. Kitty had taken all-day journeys be- 
fore; but they had been the j oiliest of holiday 
trips, with dear papa, the best and gayest of 
chums, at her side, spending money right and 
left with true sailor recklessness; chaffing the 
little Italian fruit boys in their own soft 
language; handing out chocolate and candy 
to all the little folks near; joking with con- 
ductors and porters; scattering sunshine and 
gladness on all within his reach. For papa’s 
work ” had always been on the great blue 
sea, guiding the beautiful Hispania over the 
wide waters, through storm and darkness, 
past rock and reef and shoal. When he 
touched land, he was like a big boy out of 
school. 

But Uncle Dave was a very different 
travelling companion indeed. The ^‘parlor 
41 


42 


A DAY’S JOiniNEY. 


cars,” where Kitty had always been cushioned 
cosily before, were. Uncle Dave remarked, 
only for fools ” ; candy and fruit vendors 
were dismissed with a growling ^‘No!” 

Putting “ Niece Katherine ” in a plain, 
straight seat. Uncle Dave took from his pocket 
the Iron Workers' Journal, and was soon 
absorbed in its black columns, apparently 
forgetful of the little girl at his side. But 
as journeys of any sort were infrequent ex- 
periences to our little convent Kitty, and her 
seat was luckily by the car window, there was 
so much to interest her in the swift-flying 
panorama without, that she quite lost sight 
of the grim old travelling companion in the 
beautiful scenes through which they sped. 

For all Earth was laughing in the glad sun- 
shine of May; little brooks were tumbling joy- 
ously down the hillsides; white lambs frisked 
in the green meadows; the wayside was gay 
with buttercups and daisies; the orchards 
very bowers of pink and white bloom. Kitty 
had glimpses of lovely old houses, their white- 
pillared porches shaded by great, spreading 
trees, and pretty little cottages nestling under 
vines and roses. Ah, it was a beautiful world, 


A DAY’S JODENEY. 


43 


as Sister Carmel, who taught poetry, always 
told the girls; and if Uncle Dave’s home was 
among trees and flowers and apple blossoms 
like these, really, it wouldn’t be so very 
dreadful. 

At two o’clock the junction with the other 
road was reached; and the train that had 
borne our travellers thus far swept on its 
pleasant way down the valley, leaving Uncle 
Dave, Kitty, and some twenty other passen- 
gers, at a little station at the foot of the 
mountains. 

Uncle Dave now put a silver piece in Kitty’s 
hand. 

“We stop here an hour, and there’s a lunch 
room inside,” he said gruffly. “ If you want 
anything, go get it.” 

Kitty did want something decidedly. All 
the tragic excitement of the morning could 
not dull her to the fact that it was fully two 
hours past dinner time at St. Ursula’s, and 
she was a very hungry little girl indeed. So 
she stepped into a big, bright room, where a 
long table was spread most invitingly; and 
the clatter of knives and forks, the odors of 
fried chicken and hot coffee, were needlessly 


44 


A DAY’S JOURNEY. 


appetizing. But another train had stopped 
about twenty minutes before at the junction, 
and every place at the table was already oc- 
cupied. Poor little Kitty, with no one to 
look out for her, could only stand shyly aside 
and wait her turn, while the brief moments 
sped on all too quickly. 

A group at the end of the table caught 
and held her wistful gaze. It was such a 
gay, happy crowd, — a pretty, brown-eyed 
lady, with boys and girls of all sizes and 
ages gathered around her, from a big, rosy- 
cheeked fellow of fourteen in the uniform 
of a military institute, to a fat baby who was 
sucking a chicken bone in the arms of an old 
mammy,” behind his mother’s chair. And 
they were all chattering and laughing, and 
enjoying the good things in a way that went 
to poor little hungry Kitty’s lonely heart. 

Then suddenly the pretty lady’s brown eyes 
fell on the little black-robed girl, and she 
whispered something to the big boy at her 
side. In a moment he was on his feet, like the 
gallant young soldier he was. 

“ Take my place, won’t you? ” he said to 
Kitty. ‘‘You’ll get no lunch if you’re not 
pretty quick here.” 


A DAY’S JOUENEY. 


45 


''Oh, no— no!” said Kitty. " I— I can 

wait. Finish your own lunch, please ! ” 

" Oh, I’ll finish it all right ! ” he laughed. 
" I know the ropes.” 

" Yes, come take Phil’s place, my dear,” 
said Phil’s mother, smiling. " He can look 
out for himself, but you can’t.” And the 
speaker drew Kitty into the chair beside her. 

Phil snapped his fingers to a black waiter, 
and in a moment there were fried chicken and 
hot rolls and all sorts of good things within 
Kitty’s reach, while the pretty mother filled 
Kitty’s glass with rich, sweet milk, finding 
time and thought, as real mothers will, for 
the stranger, even while she kept a watchful 
eye on her own little flock. 

" Don’t let the twins have any more straw- 
berries, Letty. Yes, one little piece of that 
cake, Dick. Rosa dear, if you have finished, 
take baby and let mammy go get some lunch 
for herself. And are you travelling all alone, 
my dear little girl? ” 

No, ma’am. My Uncle Dave, Mr. Dillon, 
is outside,” answered Kitty. 

" Mr. Dillon ! ” repeated the lady, in as- 
tonishment. " Mr. David Dillon, of Black- 


46 


A DAY’S JOUKNEY. 


stone Ridge, your uncle! Why, we are his 
neighbors — or as near neighbors as he will 
permit,” she added, with a laugh. We are 
the Markhams, and we are going to our Lodge 
for the summer. This is indeed a surprise. 
I did not dream that — ” the speaker paused 
and caught back the unpleasant truth that 
she had never heard of Mr. Dillon’s having 
a niece. Phil,” she turned to that young 
gentleman, who had evidently secured a most 
satisfactory lunch by a “ pull ” with the 
waiters behind the scenes, this little girl is 
Mr. David Dillon’s niece.” 

« Not— not 'Old Flint’s’?” said Phil. 

" My son ! ” interposed his mother. 

" I beg pardon I But, you see, they will 
give people nicknames up our way. And — 
and — you are going to visit Blackstone? ” 

" No : to live there,” answered Kitty. 

" To live there ! Whew ! ” Again a look 
from his mother checked Phil’s whistle of dis- 
may. 

" He means you may be lonesome,” said 
Mrs. Markham, gently. " If so, you must re- 
member we are not very far away. We shall 
be at the Lodge all summer, — a crowd of us,” 


A DAY’S JOITENEY. 


47 


the pretty mother added gaily ; and we hope 
you will come over to see us as often as you 
can. What is your name? ” 

Kitty — Kitty Dillon. I have to live with 
Uncle Dave now,” the speaker’s voice trem- 
bled over the explanation, because — because 
my dear father was lost with his ship.” 

Oh, I remember ! ” said Mrs. Markham, 
with quick, warm sympathy. You are Cap- 
tain Dillon’s little girl. My dear, dear child ! 
I am so sorry — I mean you must let us see a 
great deal of you. There comes the train. 
Quick, Letty, Kosa, Dick, Joe, — come, chil- 
dren, all of you, quick! ” 

And then, in the hurry and excitement, 
Kitty lost sight of her new friends, as the 
train came sweeping up to the station, with 
two great black engines panting and shrieking 
as if in rage at the fierce, hard pull they must 
take up the mountain. For it was a pull 
indeed even for their iron lungs and fiery 
breath. 

Kitty, whose holiday journeys with papa 
had always led to some gay, pretty place at 
seashore or springs, had never seen the moun- 
tains; and her little tip-tilted nose was al- 


48 


A DAY’S JOimNEY. 


most glued to the window-pane this after- 
noon as her wondering eyes watched the 
strange scenes without. Higher and higher 
the great, black engines strained with their 
heavy load ; higher, ever higher, until the 
valleys below were lost in silvery mists and 
all around her grew rough and wild and full 
of strange peril. 

More than once our young traveller held 
her breath in terror, and clasped the little 
pearl rosary Sister Felicie at parting had 
twined about her wrist, as the train swept 
around dizzy curves, where the rocks went 
down to sheer depths of a thousand feet beside 
the slender rail, or dashed into the black 
gloom of a tunnel, or leaped on a slender 
bridge, the mountain torrent foaming and 
thundering in clouds of spray below. 

Higher and ever higher, until the fair, 
sweet earth Kitty had known until now 
seemed to vanish, and she was in a new world 
of crag and cliff, where the trees had to battle 
with the wind that had bent and gnarled their 
branches; and the green things grew as best 
they could, — creeping, twining, clinging to 
rock and ridge and stony steep. Still higher 


A DAY^S JOUENEY. 


49 


and higher, until the sun went down between 
two great peaks, and all the western sky was 
a glory of rose and gold and violet, and the 
very gates of heaven seemed swinging open 
between pillars of pearly clouds. 

“ Something worth seeing, isn’t it? ” said 
a gruff voice at Kitty’s side. 

She turned with a start. Uncle Dave had 
dropped his paper and was looking out at the 
sunset sky. The frown was smoothed out of 
his brows; for the moment something in the 
rugged face reminded Kitty of that other dear 
face she would never see again, and she had to 
gulp back the sob that rose in her throat as 
Uncle Dave went on. 

‘^Ever been as high as this before?” he 
asked. 

No,” answered Kitty, tremulously. 

How do you like it? ” he asked again. 

I — I don’t know — ^yet,” Kitty faltered, the 
sob still in her throat. Are we almost home. 
Uncle Dave? ” 

“ Home ! ” he echoed the word with a short, 
harsh laugh, and the frown came back to his 
grizzled brows. No, not for two hours yet. 
It will be dark when we get — home. And if 


50 


A DAY’S JOillRNEY. 


you can stick to that word it will be best for 
you — and me, too, Niece Katherine; though 
it’s a new name for Blackstone Place — home ! ” 

And he relapsed into grim silence, which 
Kitty did not venture to break. She turned 
to her window again and watched the twi- 
light stealing in soft, violet shadows over the 
heights, the silvery haze rising from the valley 
to meet it, until all things grew dim and vague, 
and they seemed to be sweeping through a vast 
cloudland without path or guide. Then, as 
the darkness deepened, Kitty’s blue eyes, weary 
with much watching, grew heavy, the fringed 
lids drooped, the clatter of the speeding train 
changed into the Coronation chorus, and she 
was back again at dear St. Ursula’s, bearing 
her lily sceptre, wearing her May Day crown. 
Kitty’s tired head sunk down, down, until it 
somehow toppled sideways on Uncle Dave’s 
shoulder, the loosened hair strayed over his 
rough sleeve, the soft, fair cheek pressed 
against his arm. 

For a moment he looked at the little sleeper 
with fierce surprise; then his rugged face 
softened, and he sat motionless as an image, 
strange feelings tugging at his tough old 


A DAY^S JOimNEY. 


51 


heartstrings. Long, long ago, before those 
heartstrings had toughened, he had had a little 
golden-haired brother whom he had loved. 
Long, long ago, in some fair, sweet past, so 
blurred for years by passion and pride and 
bitterness that it had been almost forgotten, 
little ‘‘ Jack ” had dropped asleep on big 
David^s shoulder just like this. 

All unconscious of the tug on Uncle Dave’s 
old heartstrings, Kitty slept on, not very com- 
fortably indeed; for the coat-sleeve on which 
she leaned was rough, and the May Day crown 
of her dream seemed full of strange prickles. 
She would have shaken it off, but Mother 
Paula’s voice seemed to whisper in her ear : 

Not yet, Kitty, — not yet. Kemember the 
Queen’s Promise. The thistles will change 
into roses. Only wait, Kitty, — wait.” 

And then the study bell seemed to clang 
harshly, and Kitty started up, to find the 
train had stopped, and hoarse voices were 
shouting, All off for Blackstone Ridge ! ” 
And Uncle Dave, gruff and grim again, was 
gathering up his umbrella and bags. 

Rouse up. Niece Katherine!” he said 
curtly. We are — home.” 


CHAPTER V. 


THE NEW HOME. 

Only half awake, Kitty followed Uncle 
Dave from the car to a long platform beside 
the track; the train swept off again into the 
darkness, and she stood bewildered in what 
seemed a horrible dream; though never, even 
in her childish fevers, had Kitty dreamed of 
anything like this. Sky and star and cloud, 
wood and vale and hill, all the sweet heaven 
and earth she had known, had vanished; all 
around her was an awful firelit darkness, filled 
with hideous din and roar. The great moun- 
tain she had crossed rose before her now like 
a mighty wall of rocks; huge chimneys sent 
their tongues of fiame and clouds of smoke 
far into the upper gloom; the sullen glow of 
coke ovens stretched in all directions; and, 
while she stood breathless and appalled, there 
came a crash like a thunderbolt, and a torrent 
of flame rushed down the mountain with hor- 
rible hiss and roar. 


53 


THE NEW HOME. 


53 


Kitty shrieked aloud in terror and caught 
desperately at Uncle Dave^s arm. 

Only a dump, child,’’ he said gruffly. 

Slag from the furnace. You’ll have to get 
used to that. Come on ! Tim ! ” 

And poor little Kitty started again at the 
queer, misshapen figure that rose out of the 
darkness at her uncle’s call. There is a 
trunk on the stand here. Get it to the house 
as soon as you can. Come, Niece Katherine! 
It’s something of a climb: you’d better take 
my hand.” 

It was an ice-cold little hand that slipped 
into Uncle Dave’s. It seemed an ice-cold 
heart that lay heavy in Kitty’s breast. Even 
the steep path she took was hard and black 
with cinders and slag. Oh, it was a dream, 
surely! This dreadful place could not be 
real ; or else she had died in the cars, and this 
was purgatory ” at Uncle Dave’s side. 

In the Senior class-room at St. Ursula’s 
there was a book full of pictures something 
like this; and once Sister Carmel had showed 
them to her, and had told her about Dante, the 
great Italian poet, who had written such won- 
derful and terrible things that only older 


54 


THE NEW HOME. 


girls were allowed to read. But Kitty felt 
sure Dante’s dream had never equalled this, 
as another dump ” filled the mountain with 
its awful glare and roar, and again in her 
terror she shrieked outright. 

Don’t be a fool. Niece Katherine!” said 
the gruff voice at her side. That dump is 
half a mile away, and it wouldn’t hurt you if 
it were at your side. And all this fire and 
smoke and noise means money, girl, — money, 
money; and that’s the main thing in this 
world.” 

But Kitty was too overcome to hear or heed 
Uncle Dave’s words. Even if she had, they 
would have had little meaning to her. At St. 
Ursula’s, money had been a very good thing, 
of course. Mother Paula kept it somewhere, 
and it was always forthcoming at need for 
fudge,” caramels, ice-cream treats, and all 
the pleasant things that convent girls like. 
But “ money ” as a main thing ” was beyond 
Kitty’s comprehension, and would not have 
lessened in the least the fiery horrors about 
her. 

Still trembling with terror, she walked on 
in silence at Uncle Dave’s side, until they 


THE NEW HOME. 


55 


reached a tall iron gate bristling with spikes, 
which her guide had scarcely opened when 
two great dogs came leaping forward, barking 
fiercely. 

Down, — down, you brutes ! Max ! Ming ! 
down, I say ! cried their master, sternly. 
And the dogs slunk away, yelping and whin- 
ing ; while Uncle Dave led on, up a hard, black 
path, to a tall house that rose from among 
the shadows, dark and close-shut as a tomb. 

Kitty^s guide opened the door with a key he 
took from his pocket, and the travellers stood 
at their journey’s end, in a bare, bleak hall, 
dimly lit by a swinging iron lamp. Closed 
doors showed on either side, but there was no 
sign of life until Uncle Dave shouted fiercely : 

Cripps I Cripps ! ” Then there was a clank- 
ing of bars and bolts, and an old woman 
peered cautiously out of a half-open door and 
stepped into the hall. She was tall and thin, 
and her face, from which the hair was drawn 
tight back under a white cap, looked like the 
faces the girls used to make on hickory nuts 
from the big tree on St. Ursula’s playground. 

Oh, it’s you back ! ” she said dully. 

Yes. What the dickens are you barred 


56 


THE NEW HOME. 


and bolted in like this for? asked Uncle 
Dave, impatiently. 

“ Because I’m afeerd,” was the slow answer, 
— because I’m a lone, lorn woman more than 
sixty years old, and there’s bad blood boiling 
all around us, as you know, David Dillon ” 

There, — there ! Stop that confounded 
creaking of yours, Cripps, and give us some 
supper. This is the girl I wrote about, — my 
niece, Katherine Dillon. Niece Katherine, 
this is my housekeeper, Mrs. Jane Cripps. 
You’ll have to get along together as best you 
can. Her boy Tim is bringing up your trunk. 
That’s all there is of us; not a very cheerful 
household, as you can see. Now supper, 
Cripps, quick ! And then you can show Niece 
Katherine her room, and let her go to bed; 
for she is tired, I know.” 

Come in, child, — come in,” said Cripps, 
opening a door to the right; and Kitty was 
ushered into a room where at first all was 
inky blackness. 

Then Cripps lit a lamp, that made a circle 
of light about the table on which it stood, and 
showed heavy, old-fashioned furniture loom- 
ing dimly around. The faint-hearted little 


THE HEW HOME. 


57 


traveller sank down wearily on a great hair- 
cloth sofa supported by two black walnut 
griffins, while Cripps and Uncle Dave held 
parley in the shadows beyond. 

“ It will be more work and more pay,^’ said 
Cripps, grimly. 

“ Stuff and nonsense ! ” growled Dillon. 

And I tell you it will. Girls do a deal of 
cluttering, and thereTl be the washing and the 
cleaning and the cooking and the bed-mak- 
ing.'' 

Let her do it for herself." 

Is it your brother's child you'd turn into 
a scullion, David Dillon! No, I want none 
of her meddling." 

Name your price, then." 

Five dollars more the month." 

Five dollars ! " echoed Dillon, — five 
dollars! Why, you are mad, Cripps! Five 
dollars for that girl ! It's not worth three." 

What do you know about girl's work? It's 
five dollars or nothing," persisted the old 
woman. 

Have it as you will, then, you old skin- 
fiint ! " was the fierce answer. 

Dillon flung himself angrily in a big chair; 


58 


THE HEW HOME. 


while poor little Kitty, with burning cheek and 
quivering lip, sat silently on her high sofa; 
realizing, with a strange new sense of shame 
and sorrow, how unwelcome a guest she was in 
this dark, gloomy house. Oh, was it only last 
evening that she sat at the flower-decked table 
at dear St. Ursula’s, amid lights and music 
and friends, a happy Queen of May! Only 
last evening! It seemed weeks, years ago, to 
the sad little exile seated in Uncle Dave’s 
dreary parlor to-night. 

In a little while Cripps called them to sup- 
per; and the big dining-room seemed equally 
dark and grim, with shadows brooding around 
the wide table, shadows hovering in the cor- 
ners, — everywhere shadows, that the lamps 
could not dispel. 

There was such a choking in Kitty’s throat ' 
she could not eat, such a dimness in her eyes 
she could scarcely see. She felt a wild sense 
of relief when Uncle Dave, after drinking his 
third cup of strong black tea, got up and said 
he must go down to his office now and see how 
things were getting on, and Niece Katherine 
had better go to bed. And Cripps led her up 
the stairs — dark like all the rest of this new 


THE HEW HOME. 


59 


home, — to another big room, where a high 
four-post bed stood curtained like a cata- 
falque, and where the long mirror of the 
dressing table flung back the ghostly gleam of 
the one candle. There was a wardrobe — a 
great, towering wardrobe, — in which all the 
dreadful things that haunt imaginative little 
girls^ dreams could conveniently hide. 

Kitty thought of the little white curtained 
alcove at St. Ursula’s, with the red light al- 
ways glimmering softly from the Sacred Heart 
altar in the dormitory, as if in blessed watch 
over the girlish sleepers; and her long-tried 
strength failed. She sank into one of the tall, 
high-backed chairs and burst into tears. 

Land ! ” said Cripps, staring at her. 

What are you crying for, child? ” 

Oh, I can’t — can’t help it ! ” sobbed Kitty, 
pitifully. Don’t — don’t mind me, please ; I 
can’t help it, indeed ! ” 

Oh, I don’t mind ! ” answered Cripps. 

Cry if you want to. But it looks to me like 
you orter be glad to be took in and done for, 
with your father and mother both dead, and 
you an orfling without any home. Took you 
out of an asylum? ” 


60 


THE NEW HOME. 


Oh, no, no ! sobbed Kitty. Out of a 
convent, — the dearest, sweetest place ! ” 

A convent ! ’’ said Cripps, — a convent ! 
Land ! I don’t wonder now that David Dillon 
snatched you like a brand from the burning! 
A convent. Not a real Romish convent where 
they have the nuns I’ve heern about? ” 

Yes,” replied Kitty, between her sobs. 
Land ! ” murmured the old woman again. 

How long was you there, child? ” 

Six years,” was the weeping answer, — “ six 
years ; and I’ll never, never go back, I’m afraid 
now, — never, never ! ” 

You ain’t crying for that ! ” exclaimed 
Cripps, in breathless amazement. ‘‘ Don’t 
tell me you’re crying to go back in one of them 
awful places, where they chain womenfolks 
in dark cellars and bury them alive? ” 

Kitty, who had never heard any of these 
pleasant fictions that still circulate among the 
stupid and ignorant, only lifted a face of inno- 
cent bewilderment to the grim speaker. 

I don’t know what you mean,” she said 
simply. I love St. Ursula’s better than any 
place on earth, and, oh, it’s just breaking my 
heart to leave it ! ” 


THE KEW HOME. 


61 


Breaking your heart/^ repeated Cripps, as 
if the words stirred some sleeping depths in 
her own gaunt breast. 

Land, child, what do you know about 
heart-break? What if you were like me, 
with your husband killed by the fire damp in 
the black choking mines yonder, and your boy 
— your only boy — twisted into a knot under 
your face and eyes?” 

Was that your boy that brought my 
trunk?” asked Kitty, in a tone of startled 
sympathy. 

^^Ay, that was my boy — or all that is left 
of him when he was drawed out of one of your 
uncle’s rollers four years ago,” answered 
Cripps, her harsh voice trembling. “ That’s 
my boy, and all I’ve got to keer for on 
earth.” 

Oh, I’m so sorry for you ! ” said Kitty, 
softly. I don’t wonder he got hurt in this 
awful place. Is it always like this, — the fire 
and smoke and roar and heat? ” 

Always,” answered Cripps, night and 
day from year’s end to year’s end. There’s 
steel works and iron works and coke ovens, all 
with their great fiery maws, that must be kept 


62 


THE NEW HOME. 


filled, child, to put gold into your uncle’s 
pockets. And there’s five hundred men here 
kept sweating and toiling at his will; and all 
of them with hate in their hearts as black as 
the grime on their faces, child, for the man 
that is grinding out their lives. But there! 
I’m talking too much.” She stopped suddenly, 
and the sharp, seamed face, that had kindled 
into life, turned into its hickory likeness again. 

It’s time you were abed and asleep.” 

Oh, but it’s so big and lonesome here, 
Cripps ! ” Kitty rose and stole an appealing 
hand to the old woman’s arm. Dear Cripps, 
can’t I sleep somewhere near you to-night? ” 
Cripps looked down at the sweet young face 
uplifted to her, and again the hickory visage 
changed, — this time to soften strangely. 

Skeered are you, poor little creetur? I 
don’t wonder; but I can’t leave Tim, child. I 
ain’t never left him of nights sence he got hurt. 
David Dillon agreed to give us both w^ork and 
pay here as long as we lived, to make it up to 
us; though I heerd since a lawyer could have 
got us more than a thousand dollars cash 
down. But we’re both here, child, right next 
room to you; and if you want anything, you 


THE NEW HOME. 


63 


can just knock at that door. So yon go to bed 
and donT skeer.’’ 

And Cripps vanished, as a halting foot- 
step sounded in the hall without. Poor 
crooked Tim was coming home to his grim 
old mother’s care. 

It was some comfort to the little stranger to 
think even of poor gaunt Cripps next door. 
She knelt down beside the great high bed and 
said her night prayers with a new fervor, a 
new appeal to the Mother of Mercy to look 
down upon her little child’s exile.” Then 
when she rose and loosened her ribbon belt to 
retire for the night,, something dropped at her 
feet. Picking it up, she recognized the little 
spray of leaf and bud Mother Paula had 
tucked in her waist that morning. 

The Queen’s Promise, — the dear Queen’s 
Promise! It seemed to bear a message from 
the sweet old chapel whose window it 
wreathed, — a tender message of hope and 
cheer. Kitty pressed the little half-withered . 
spray to her lips, and then placed it in a glass 
of water on her washstand. 

Without, the roar of engines, the beat of 
steam hammers, the crash of the flaming 


64 


THE NEW HOME. 


dumps filled the darkness. The great chim- 
neys belched forth their fire and smoke against 
the starry sky. Uncle Dave sat in his office 
counting his gains; and his men worked on, 
with hate and bitterness in their hearts. But 
within his gloomy old home there was a new 
presence. A fair-haired little girl was sleep- 
ing in the high four-post bed, with her pearl 
rosary twined about her slender fingers, and 
at her side a spray of the Queen^s Promise 
with close-folded buds. 


CHAPTER VI. 


BLACKSTONE RIDGE. 

Kitty awoke next morning with Cripps^' 
harsh voice sounding in her ear : Land, you 
kin sleep, sure ’nough! I didn’t call you 
sooner, thinking you was tired. Now the boss 
is gone, and breakfast is ready.” 

Oh, it is late indeed ! ” exclaimed Kitty, 
starting up and shaking the golden curls back 
from her pretty face, while she looked around 
her for a moment in sleepy bewilderment. 

It was a bright May morning, and not even 
Uncle Dave and his twenty smoking chimneys 
could altogether darken a May morning, try 
as they might. The sunbeams were dancing 
through the two windows of Kitty’s room, and 
had sent all the frowning shadows of the pre- 
vious night back to their native Hades. 

And a picture over the high mantel, quite 
invisible the night before, stood out now in 
beautiful color and light, — the picture of a 
65 . 


66 


BLACKSTONE EIDGE. 


sweet-faced lady, all dressed in white, with a 
big dark-haired boy standing by her chair, 
and a little golden-haired boy leaning against 
her knee. Altogether, things looked very much 
pleasanter this morning ; even the little 
withered sprig of rosebush had freshened up 
and stood quite perky and green. And when 
Kitty made her w^ay down to the big dining- 
room, there were for breakfast pancakes and 
syrup that were very good indeed. But the 
long day stretching idly before her looked very 
lonely to Kitty, whose every turn at St. 
Ursula^s had had either its pleasant work or 
play. 

Can^t I help you to wash the dishes, 
Cripps?’^ she asked, as that person, whose 
hickory-nut face looked even seamier and 
sharper in the daylight, proceeded to clear off 
the table. 

No, you can’t,’’ answered Oripps, bluntly. 

I’m paid to work for you, and I alius hold to 
my bargain. And don’t you start knuckling 
down to work too, child,” she added, in a gen- 
tler tone. “ Dave Dillon has money enough to 
keep you a lady, and let him do it right.” 

But after she had unpacked her trunk and 


BLACKSTONE EIDOE. 


67 


put away all her things in the great drawers 
and wardrobe that seemed to swallow up her 
little belongings ; after she had wandered 
through the house, with its dim, silent parlor, 
its library, where all the books seemed to be 
on mining or smelting or foundry work, or 
something equally unintelligible, and the only 
decorations were big specimens of coal or iron 
or copper that stood about in cases or on 
shelves; and after she had stared out of the 
window at the black stretch of cinder walk 
that led to the spiked iron gates, Kitty began 
to realize that being a “ lady at Blackstone 
Kidge was very dull indeed. 

So she put on her sailor hat and fluttered 
out into the yard, where a few dwarfed cedars 
grew in a ragged clump on one side of the 
house, and all else was black and bare and 
hard as stone. The May sunbeams were doing 
their best, it is true; but not even May sun- 
beams could coax bud or leaf or grass blade 
here, where the fierce two-headed giant. Gain 
and Greed, held the Ridge for his own. For 
though the old-fashioned giant of the fairy 
tale is out of date now, there are new-fashioned 
giants quite as terrible and strong; and the 


68 


BLACKSTONE EIDGE. 


great Dillon Works that bestrode the moun- 
tain, breathing fire and smoke, was one of the 
worst of the new giant kind. 

As Kitty looked out of Uncle Dave’s spiked 
gates to-day at the black smoke flags that tried 
to darken the sunlit sky, as she heard the fierce 
roar and pant of the engines, and saw the long 
stretch of frowning buildings, whose flaming 
eyes never blinked or closed by day or night, 
our little Queen of May ” felt very much like 
the princess of the old fairy tale, whom the 
giant always kept shut up in dark mountain 
castles like this, until rescued by some valiant 
Jack.” 

But there was no hope of any Jack here; 
and, seeing nothing at all attractive in the out- 
look from the gates, Kitty turned back to the 
house, when a sound of loud barking and 
scurrying and shouting made her pause mid- 
way in affright. The clamor came from the 
dwarf cedars, whose ragged branches were 
shaking tumultuously. 

“ You won’t let me alone, won’t you? Jest 
see what you’ve done ! ” 

And then, with a wild rush and scurry that 
made Kitty spring aside with a shriek, two 


BLACKSTON’E RIDGE. 


69 


big dogs came leaping out of the bushes, fol- 
lowed by a bent, twisted, shock-headed boy. 
One of the dogs held in his mouth a ragged 
book, which he was bearing away in triumph, 
when the whole party stumbled into terrified 
Kitty and nearly knocked her down. 

There now, — there I See what youVe 
done ! said the boy, reproachfully, as he 
snatched the torn book from its captor’s 
mouth, and at the same time pulled off his 
ragged cap to Kitty. Sorry, Missy, to hev 
been so onpolite, but these here dogs won’t 
larn no manners.” 

Oh, take them away, please — please — 
please ! ” cried Kitty, as the dogs still leaped 
and barked around their crooked playfellow. 

I’m afraid of them ! ” 

Down, there, — down, I say ! Ming, Max, 
down! Don’t ye see yer skeering the little 
lady? They ain’t a-going to hurt ye. Missy. 
Land, no ! They wouldn’t hurt ye for nothing. 
It’s me they’re after; ain’t it, buddies? They 
jest won’t let me alone. And I’d like to know 
how a fellow is going to larn reading or writ- 
ing or ’rithmetic when he’s got a pair of bud- 
dies rampaging round him like this?” And 


70 


BLACKSTONE EIDOE. 


the speaker's face lit with a smile that bright- 
ened it wonderfully. Ye see/’ he went on, 
as the dogs quieted down, crouching now and 
whining at his feet, they are looking for a 
swim. I’ve been fool enough to larn them the 
way to the creek. They won’t go without me,” 
he said, with a nod. “ They’ve got sense 
enough for that. They know our folks ain’t 
pop’lar round about here, and some one might 
hand them out a dose of something that 
wouldn’t be good for them. They’ve got a lot 
of sense, these buddies of mine.” 

“ What do you call them? Buddies? ” asked 
Kitty, who was beginning to feel a little reas- 
sured. 

Yes,” and the speaker laughed again. 

That’s what the boys up here calls the chap 
that works closest to him in the mines or the 
furnaces. I ain’t got nobody but the dogs, 
but they’re good enough, — better than some 
humans. But they hevn’t no sense about book- 
larning. Jest look at that fellow now ! ” And 
the would-be student eyed the book, torn in 
two from cover to cover. “ Ye orter to have 
a lambasting for that sure, Ming. I ain’t got 
no money to buy books, as you know.” 


BLACKSTOI^E EIDGE. 


71 


“ No, lie doesn^t,’’ said Kitty, brightening 
np somewhat even at this companionship. 

How could he? But I’ve got a speller in my 
trunk that I will give you.” 

“ Hev you ? ” asked the boy, and again the 
plain face brightened. I’ll say ‘ Thank you ’ 
for it, sure. Mam lamed me a little; but she 
never went further herself than two syllables, 
and there she stuck. Hadn’t any head, she 
says, for more than four letters in a line. It 
is sort of puzzling. I’ll allow; but I give two 
hours a day to it, when these here dogs let me, 
and I’m getting on fine. Kin make some of 
the letters too, fust-rate. Look at that ! ” And 
the boy thrust his hand in his ragged pocket 
and drew out a piece of stiff paper on which 
letters of various lengths and sizes had labor- 
iously grouped themselves into the inscription : 

tiMotHy cRips.” He added, with his cheer- 
ful smile : “ I done it all myself.” 

‘‘Oh, did you?” said Kitty, faintly. She 
was quite unable to say more; but, uncon- 
scious of the pity and dismay in her tone, this 
promising scholar pocketed his bit of paper 
and went on : 

“ Oh, I’m getting there all right ! I kin read 


72 


BLACKSTONE EIDGE. 


some of the big print in the newspapers now. 
Mam allows she^d like to see me a lawyer or 
a jedge, or something easy. Idl never be good 
for much else. Will you stop that crying, you 
buddies, you? No, they won% — not till they 
get to the creek. So I reckon we^ll hev to go. 
Mebbe you’d like to come along? ” added 
Kitty’s new acquaintance, politely. 

Oh, could I, do you think?” she said. 

Don’t see what’s to stop you,” replied Tim, 
cheerily. It ain’t more than a mile, and 
there’s some grass there and alder bushes. It 
looks downright pretty.” 

Oh, I’ll go then ! ” said Kitty, reflecting 
that there was really no one to give permis- 
sions ” here. 

And they all started off together, — the dogs 
leaping and barking joyfully; and Kitty with 
her queer, crooked companion, walking side 
by side. Her light, springing step was a 
strange contrast to his ungainly, limping lope ; 
for poor Tim had been crippled as well as 
twisted by the cruel roller that had nearly 
crushed out his life five years ago. 

They turned away from forge and furnace’ 
into a steep rocky path that led down the 


BLACKSTONE RIDGE. 


73 


Ridge. For a while it was all slag and cinder- 
strewn like the rest ; but as it curved about the 
mountain-side, the black, hard crust vanished ; 
the warm, brown earth showed green with 
springing grass under the sheltering rocks 
where young vines were clinging with timid, 
trusting tendrils. Through the clang and roar 
that still sounded from the heights above, 
there came the murmur of falling waters. The 
dogs bounded forward joyfully; and Kitty, 
following Tim around a sharp bend of the 
path, uttered a little cry of surprise and de- 
light as, through a mist of rainbow spray, she 
saw the Blackstone Falls leaping from a cliff 
in the mountain and spreading into silvery 
pool and brook at her feet. 

Ming and Max sprang into the water with- 
out bidding, while Tim and Kitty seated them- 
selves on a moss-grown boulder that jutted 
out into the stream, and watched the bud- 
dies at their gambols. 

A fringe of alder bushes bordered the creek, 
that made its way with many a bend and twist 
until it swept joyfully into the shining river. 

Pretty down here, ain’t it? ” said Tim, as, 
with a fling of his long arm, he sent a stick far 


u 


BLACKSTONE EIDOE. 


down the stream for Ming to catch. Water 
seems alius a singing and playing. Better 
sing and play while it can, for it will have to 
work pretty soon.” 

Work ! How? ” asked Kitty, curiously. 

Boss going to set it turning wheels for 
him,” answered Tim, laconically. He hed 
folks down here the other day a prying round. 
Said there was power ^nough here to run the 
whole Works.” 

And will they make this pretty place black 
and fiery and smoky like all the rest? ” asked 
Kitty in dismay. 

Reckon they will,” was the philosophic 
reply. “ Boss Dillon donT go in for pretti- 
ness, you know. It’s work with him, — work 
and money. The law’s agin it now, but I went 
to work when I wasn’t ten years old. That’s 
how I got hurt; didn’t hev sense ’nough to 
keep clear of things. Dad got choked in the 
mine, and I hed to stir round early. Couldn’t 
walk at all for two years. Doctors kept 
me done up in plaster. My, that was 
tough! And I come out crooked, after all. 
But you don’t know how good it is to hev even 
crooked legs after you’ve been done up stiff 


BLACKSTONE RIDGE. 


75 


and still in plaster, — though 'mam took it 
hard ; she counted, you see, on me being 
straightened out.” 

‘^And won’t you ever?” said Kitty, piti- 
fully. ‘‘ I mean,” she corrected herself in 
haste, ‘^you may grow straightened out, you 
know.” 

Me ! ” said Tim with a laugh, as he threw 
another stick out to his buddies.” No, I’ll 
never grow at all. I ain’t looking for it, 
neither is mam now. I’ll jest hunch up more 
and more. That’s the reason I’ve tuk to book- 
larning. A hunch don’t keep you from getting 
there, you know. If there was a school any- 
where round, I’d make for it, you kin bet. 
But there ain’t. Boss Dillon is dead sot agin 
schooling up here. He ’lows he wants hands 
and not heads. But I’m getting there all the 
same, though I do stick sometimes. You been 
to school reg’lar, I reckon, hevn’t you? ” 

“ Oh, yes, ever since I was a very little 
girl ! ” answered Kitty. 

Then mebbe you kin make this here out.” 
Tim drew a small vial from his pocket. Ole 
Miss Luckett down to the Notch gave it to 
me for mam ; but Miss Luckett can’t read nor 


76 


BLACKSTONE EIDGE. 


spell neither, and she is more than half blind 
besides. What does that there reading say, 
please? ” 

Cough mixture,” answered the little girl, 
glancing at the label on the vial. 

Cough mixture,” said Tim. “ C-o-u-g-h 
spells cough! Sure about that. Missy? ” 

Oh, very sure ! ” replied Kitty, laughing. 

C-O'U-g-h spells cough,” said Tim. “ Who’d 
ever hev thought it, now? I wouldn’t let mam 
tech it, for fear it was some sort of remedy for 
a cow.” 

O Tim, Tim ! ” Kitty’s laugh rang out mer- 
rily indeed now. “ But I don’t wonder, trying 
to learn all by yourself. I’ll help you, if you 
will let me, Tim. I’ll teach you how to spell 
and read, and everything the Sisters at St. 
Ursula’s taught me.” 

Would it be boys’ laming?” Tim asked; 
because that’s what I’m in for, you know. 
I’m starting square for lawyer or jedge, and 
don’t want to shy off into no women’s ways.” 

Kitty’s face dimpled for a minute and then 
grew sweet with tender pity again. 

Of course not ; but boys and girls all be- 
gin alike, Tim. I can help you only to begin. 


BLACKSTONE EIDGE. 


77 


Afterward — ’’ The truthful little speaker 
paused as she looked at the dwarfed, mis- 
shapen youth before her. What hope could she 
hold out afterward ’’ to poor crooked Tim? 

But Tim^s pale, gaunt face kindled with 
rainbows she could not see. 

Afterward,’’ he continued her sentence, I 
kin hike on myself, you mean; and I will, 
sure. If you will jest give me a little shove 
with the spelling. Missy, I’ll thank you kindly. 
And afterward, as you say, I kin hike along 
man’s way for the top.” 

For the top ! ” Kitty looked at the poor, 
bent, crippled boy to see if he were in jest or 
earnest; but Tim’s blue eyes met hers hope- 
fully. 

^^And I’ll get there,” he added, as he hob- 
bled stiffly to his feet. ’Tain’t as if ye wanted 
legs or back. I’ll get somehow to the top.” 

And, whistling for his buddies,” Tim and 
the wondering Kitty took their homeward 
way. 


CHAPTER VII. 


NEW LESSONS. 

Kitty began lessons ” next day A little 
covered porch off the kitchen served as school- 
room; and here the young teacher brought 
slate and books, and began a struggle with 
difficulties unknown to the calm, well-ordered 
ways of St. Ursula^s. For poor Tim, though 
close to sixteen, knew no more than the little 
Primes ” of six. He had lamed himself 
after methods not taught in schools or books. 
Spelling was bad enough; he mixed his i’s 
and i/’s hopelessly, and left out all silent let- 
ters as useless impediments in his scholarly 
career. Reading was worse; at the sight of 
the pictured page, his imagination kindled, 
and he made up the reading lesson, regardless 
of printed text. Of arithmetic Kitty’s pupil 
had some stern, practical knowledge, acquired 
by a close counting of pennies and dimes ; but 
there were other problems ahead, with which 
78 


NEW LESSONS. 


79 


the young teacher had never wrestled. When, 
true to the methods at St. Ursula’s, she pro- 
duced her little catechism, Tim’s face was a 
blank indeed. 

Catechism? ” he said. “ What’s that? ” 

Oh, don’t you know, Tim?” was the 
shocked question. 

Tim shook his head. ‘‘ I never heerd of it. 
If it’s one of them books that tell you about 
cats and critters, I don’t want to larn out of 
it. Know a plenty now.” 

“ O Tim ! ” the ' young teacher could only 
gasp, unequal to further remonstrance. 

I do,” said Tim, decidedly. Any chap 
that’s been rizzed in the mountains don’t need 
to larn that. That’s a girl’s book, I guess, 
and Ave’ll jest cut it out.” 

O Tim, you don’t understand ! It isn’t 
what — what you think at all,” said Kitty, al- 
most tearful in her dismay. Did you never 
hear of a catechism, Tim? It’s a book that all 
boys and girls study. It teaches them all 
about God and heaven, and how to be good 
and do what is right.” 

It does? ” said Tim, staring. Mighty 
little to do all that. But I ain’t in for that 


80 


NEW LESSONS. 


nohow. Ain’t ever got religion, and don’t 
want to. Mam says ’tain’t no use she kin see. 
She got it once at camp meeting, and couldn’t 
keep it; so I ain’t for trying.” 

0 Tim ! ” — and again speech quite failed 
Kitty. 

Well, it ain’t boy’s laming nohow,” con- 
tinued Tim. 

Oh, yes, it is, — it is ! ” the young teacher 
broke out at last, passionately. “ O Tim, 
don’t you ever go to church or say your 
prayers or — do anything? ” 

Naw,” replied Tim, stolidly. “ What’s the 
good? Ain’t you going on with that there 
spelling. Missy?” 

Oh, I can’t — just yet ! ” she murmured. 

At this moment, all the fire and smoke and 
hideous gloom of Blackstone Ridge seemed 
less dreadful than this glimpse poor Tim had 
given her of a darkened, neglected soul. How 
to deal with this stolid, wilful darkness was 
a problem that has perplexed older and wiser 
heads than little Kitty’s. But happily she 
was too young to see all its difficulties. She 
tackled it with simple decision. 

1 promised to teach you, Tim, and I must 


NEW LESSONS. 


SI 


do it right. You’ll have to learn catechism 
with the rest.” 

All right, then,” said Tim. Fire away 
at it. Missy ! ” 

And Missy fired away ” with a missionary 
zeal that reached its mark. The very first an- 
nouncement of the little catechism, that he 
was made to love and serve God in this 
world and be happy with Him in the next,” 
made poor, benighted Tim stare. Love, serv- 
ice, happiness, were strange words to his 
dulled ears, his darkened mind. And when 
the lesson was ended, Kitty turned, to find 
Cripps standing at the kitchen window with 
a queer look on her hickory-nut face, as if she, 
too, were learning strange things. She had 
been cleaning up Kitty’s room, and held the 
sprig of rosebush in her hand. 

Got any use for this, or must I throw it 
out? ” she asked grimly. 

Oh, no, not yet ! ” said Kitty, feeling that 
this bit of green was the last link to dear St. 
Ursula’s. Maybe the little buds will open, 
Cripps.” 

Well, they won’t,” was the blunt answer. 

They can’t, cut hard and green like that. 


82 


NEW LESSONS. 


But it’s a right good live shoot. If you plant 
it, it might grow.” 

Oh, it couldn’t — here ! ” said Kitty, look- 
ing at the black, hard wastes stretching 
around her. 

There’s some good earth under them 
cedars,” said Cripps. “ The dogs scratched 
it soft playing with Tim. And there’s an old 
flower-pot here I growed some parsley in last 
winter for the soup. If you’d like to have 
it ” 

Oh, I would ! ” said Kitty, eagerly. Let 
us get the flower-pot and fill it, Tim, and see if 
my little shoot will grow.” 

And, with crooked Tim’s rude gardening 
knowledge at her service, the tiny twig of 
green was planted in a big, cracked flower-pot, 
where it drooped hopelessly, to Kitty’s un- 
practised eye. 

“ It will die, I know,” she said sadly. 

‘‘ Mebbe not,” said Cripps. Leave it in 
the dark a bit to take root. I used to raise 
green things myself long ago; had a garden 
full of them. Tim was a baby then and 
straight, — straight as a line. Seems as if I 
could see him now, running along, his fat 


NEW LESSONS. 


83 


hands catching at my pinks and petunias. Ah, 
look at him now I ” 

And, looking at him as he scurried over the 
black ground, his buddies yelping at his heels, 
Kitty could understand why poor Cripps^ hard 
lips twisted and her dim eyes blinked. 

Altogether, Blackstone Ridge was a sad, 
dreary change from the glad playground at St. 
Ursula’s; or the sweet, dim sacristy with its 
tender shadows, its holy peace. The long 
days were very lonely and dull for Kitty. 
There was only Uncle Dave, who came home 
from the Works to snatch his hasty meals, 
often in unbroken silence, sometimes with a 
few brief, curt remarks to the little girl who 
shared his repast. 

Another piece of beef. Niece Katherine? 
It is good for you. Drink plenty of milk; it 
costs nothing, girl. Getting used to things a 
bit, are you? The dumps don’t scare you 
now? ” And then again he would seem abso- 
lutely unconscious of Niece Katherine, his 
frowning brow and stern, set lips forbidding 
all approach. 

June had come, and all the beautiful sum- 
mer lands Kitty had known until now were 


84 


NEW LESSONS. 


sweet with roses; the green slopes of dear St. 
Ursula^s were glad with sunshine; the birds 
were singing in the full-leaved woods; the 
Queen’s Promise, over the chapel, in full rich 
bloom. But no bloom or beauty had come to 
Bl^ckstone Kidge. The black smoke flags still 
waved from the tall chimneys; the great fur- 
naces glared and roared; the night glowed 
with eyes of flame and leaping tongues of 
Are ; and Uncle Dave seemed to grow grimmer 
and gloomier every day. Homesick and heart- 
sick as Kitty often was, she kept bravely to 
her self-imposed task. For two hours every 
morning she taught crooked Tim. It was slow 
work, but Tim was quite unconscious of any 
shortcomings. He had reached two syllables 
now, and felt that his claim to a judgeship was 
secure. 

They were down by the creek this June 
morning. Lessons were informal these length- 
ening days ; for as Kitty recalled, even at well- 
ordered St. Ursula’s, last examinations were 
prepared in the maple grove, and final prob- 
lems solved in the shadows of the rose arbor. 
So it did not seem amiss for the young teacher 
to be seated on a flat rock arched by the spray 


NEW LESSONS. 


85 


of the waterfall, with Tim and the dogs 
stretched out in easy attitudes at her feet. 
Strong in her sense of duty, Kitty was going 
through the catechism page by page; and, in- 
sensibly both to pupil and teacher, poor Tim^s 
dull, darkened soul was turning to the light. 
They were at the Creed ’’ now ; and Kitty 
had amplified the brief text of the lesson into 
a simple story of Bethlehem, Nazareth and 
Calvary, that held Tim breathless with inter- 
est. 

Land, it must have hurt ! ’’ he said, in a 
low, awed voice, — hurt worse than being 
mashed crooked like me. Tell me some more. 
Missy. I like that catechism story first- 
rate.’’ 

And Kitty told more catechism stories, to 
the soft music of the falling waters and the 
murmur of the little creek, as it found its 
winding way over rock and ridge to meet the 
broad, shining river far below. Behind them, 
the roar of Uncle Dave’s furnaces might shake 
the mountain ; his black chimneys belch forth 
their fire and smoke, dimming the sunlight 
sky ; but in the green nook of the waterfall the 
white spray shimmered into rainbows, and 


86 


NEW LESSONS. 


the little streamlet sang a joy song as Kitty 
taught and crooked Tim learned. 

In the midst of Kitty^s catechism story, 
Ming and Max started up with bristling ears 
and sullen growls, as a tall, gaunt, sandy- 
haired man came shambling around a bend of 
the rocks. 

Down, you brutes ! he said fiercely, — • 
down, or I’ll put a bullet in you ! ” — and he 
drew a pistol from his pocket. 

Tim sprang to his feet, a strange light blaz- 
ing in his sunken eyes. 

“ Don’t you dare. Buck Benson, — don’t you 
dare to hurt them dogs! Down, buddies! — 
down, down, I say ! ” 

The dogs sank down, still growling at the 
stranger’s word. 

Oh, it’s you, Crooky, is it? ” said the 
stranger, with a harsh laugh. “ You’d better 
keep those brutes of Dillon’s closer, or he’ll 
be a dog or two short. I’m not over good- 
tempered, as you know.” 

Ay, I know ” ( Tim’s crooked form was 
trembling from head to foot), — I know you 
and your temper, Buck Benson ! If you hadn’t 
skeered me into running agin the roller, 


NEW LESSONS. 


87 


I wouldn^t be the bent, twisted thing I am. 
But I ain’t sheering of you now. Jest touch 
them dogs — ” 

Blow away, Crooky I ” interrupted the 
other, with his harsh laugh. It’s all such a 
ram’s horn as you kin do. My compliments to 
your boss. You kin tell him I ain’t forgotten 
my obligations to him. He’ll hear from me 
later.” And, with another discordant laugh, 
the speaker strode away down the mountain 
path. 

Tim stood staring blankly after him a 
moment. 

Now, I wonder what he means by that? ” 
he said, in a low, troubled voice. “ I jest won- 
der what Buck Benson means by that. ’Tain’t 
manners, sure. Come, Missy, let’s go home, — 
let’s get back home right away.” And Tim 
gathered up books and slate with nervous 
haste. 

^^Who is that horrid man, Tim?” asked 
Kitty, as they turned homeward. 

That’s Buck Benson,” answered Tim, in 
an odd voice. ’Twas he skeered me into get- 
ting mashed five years ago. Said he was going 
to put my eyes out with a bar of hot iron for 


88 


NEW LESSONS. 


turning over his oil-can, and I run — run like 
the fool kid I was — straight into the rollers. 
I’d like to kill him for it ! ” 

Oh, no, no, you wouldn’t, Tim ! ” said 
Kitty, in dismay. 

^‘Yes, I would,” repeated Tim, sturdily. 

And mam would too. She says she’d like to 
get her hands round that there red neck of his 
and choke him till his eyes popped clear out 
of his head.” 

O Tim ! How dreadful ! You and Cripps 
ought not to feel like that.” 

«Why oughtn’t we?” asked Tim, as he 
made his crippled hop-and-slip way up the 
mountain. “ If it hadn’t been for Buck Ben- 
son, mam says, I’d have been big and straight 
and strong, — a six-footer man like my dad 
was. And look what I am now” (Tim gave 
a fierce shake of his hunched shoulders) , with 
Buck Benson laughing at me for it and calling 
me ‘ Crooky ’ ! ” 

And Tim’s young teacher, looking at the 
bent, distorted figure, and recalling Buck Ben- 
son’s mocking laugh, felt the case was difficult 
indeed. 

“ Poor, poor Tim ! I know it’s very hard,” 


LESSONS. 


89 


she said softly. And I’m afraid I’d feel just 
the same if anybody bent and crookened me.” 

You ! ” Tim paused to stare at the pretty 
little figure beside him. Land, that would 
be terrible, sure ’nough ! ” 

But I’d — I’d try to forgive ! O Tim, I’d 
have to forgive ! ” continued Kitty. “ Our 
Lord said we must; and He showed us how, 
you know.” 

On that cross?” Tim’s tone softened. 

That’s so. Missy. It was worse than being 
mashed all crooked. But I ain’t forgiving 
Buck Benson like that ” — the speaker’s voice 
hardened again. Your uncle druv him off 
the Ridge three years ago, and he ain’t back 
agin round here for no good, you kin bet. Me 
and the dogs mean to watch him, — don’t we, 
buddies? Yes, we mean to watch him close.” 

And Kitty, being a wise little teacher in her 
simple way, felt it was no time to push her 
pupil’s lesson further; so she said no more. 

Together they took their way up the smoke- 
darkened Ridge, past the roaring furnaces, 
the belching chimneys, the black sheds, where 
crowds of dull, grimy figures were panting, 
sweating, toiling over forge and oven and cal- 


90 


NEW LESSONS. 


drons of boiling metal, where all was harsh 
and hideous, and discordant to eye and ear 
and mind and soul. Truly it was like the 
Inferno of the Italian poet that Sister Carmel 
read to the Senior class, thought Kitty, as she 
hurried up the black cinder path to be in time 
for dinner. 

Cripps was on the covered porch, lifting a 
flower-pot out into the sunshine. The little 
sprig of the “ Queen^s Promise stood upright, 
alert, life in every fresh green leaf. 

IPs tuk root,” said Cripps, with a grim 
smile, as Kitty sprang forward delightedly. 

I told you it would. Green growing things 
is shy of light at first. It^s tuk root there in 
the dark.” 


CHAPTER VIII. 


A BREAK IN THE GLOOM. 

The little streamlet that leaped a foaming 
waterfall over Blackstone Ridge, as if flying 
from the smoke and flame and gloom, rippled 
musically through the Notch, where the 
mountain sides went down in rocky steeps, all 
carpeted with mosses and vines; where the 
air was spicy with the breath of thick-growing 
pines, and where the old “ Injun trail,” wind- 
ing in stealthy curves over heights and depths, 
was the only road. Here, “ holding the pass,” 
as Judge Markham laughingly declared, was 
the Lodge, its big windows always open to the 
breeze and sunshine; its porches scattered 
with cushions, hammocks, hooks, blocks, and 
dolls; its rooms echoing with gay voices and 
merry laughter from May until October every 
year. His big house in the city was elegant, 
as became one of the foremost lawyers of the 
91 


92 


A BREAK IK THE GLOOM. 


State ; but there was no style at the Lodge, — 
no lady’s-maid or French cook or butler, no 
course dinners or trailing gowns ; only mammy 
to take care of the baby; and Jim and Chloe, 
who came from their own little cabin up de 
mounting ” to furnish corn-cakes and fried 
chicken and beat biscuit, and various other 
things that Phil declared Pierre, with all his 
monkey tricks, couldn’t touch.” And with the 
little ones turned loose in rompers and jum- 
pers, mamma free from visiting lists and re- 
ceptions, dad in a slouch hat and shooting 
jacket, life up the Injun trail ” was easy- 
going indeed. 

On this pleasant June evening, Mrs. Mark- 
ham and the Judge were seated on the porch, 
watching a spirited game of tennis on the 
grounds just levelled for that sport. Letty, 
with rosy cheeks and flying hair, was a pretty 
picture to her mother’s eye. 

She is looking so much better already. I 
am glad we brought them up early this year, 
even if they did lose a few days’ school. It is 
such a long journey on a hot summer day. I 
wonder ” (the gay group on the tennis court 
recalled a lonely little flgure that often flitted 


A BREAK IK THE GLOOM. 


93 


through the gentle speaker’s mind), — I do 
wonder what has become of that dear little 
girl who travelled up here with us, or how she 
is getting on with that grim, gruff old man? ” 
^^What little girl?” asked the Judge, lei- 
surely puffing a cloud of smoke from the corn- 
cob pipe that was one of his indulgences at 
the Lodge. 

Mr. Dillon’s niece, poor Captain Jack 
Dillon’s orphan daughter. Don’t you remem- 
ber my telling you about her, Wynn? Such a 
pretty, pathetic little thing in her black dress 
and hat ! When I looked around at our crowd 
and thought of the difference, my heart ached 
for the child. I’ve a mind to go up and see 
how she is getting on. I’d like to bring her 
down here for a while.” 

I don’t know about that, my dear,” said 
the Judge, doubtfully. Dillon is a crusty 
old customer, and might resent your meddling. 
We are not on very neighborly terms, as you 
know, since I have taken the case against his • 
water rights.” 

I know it’s just like him to want to turn 
the creek off all those little farms in the valley 
for his own use. I’d fight him to the end. 


94 A BREAK IN THE GLOOM. 

Wynn/’ said the lady, her pretty cheek flush- 
ing. 

Your soldier-father’s blood has not cooled 
in your veins, Bess,” said the Judge, laughing. 

You still fire at a fight. Now, / don’t : I 
keep a cool head, as a judge must. But, all the 
same, as that pigtailed laundryman of yours 
used to say when he returned the wrong 
collars, the fight with Mr. Dillon is on, and I 
am afraid any friendly advances on our part 
would receive scant encouragement just now.” 

That poor, dear little girl ! ” said the lady, 
pitifully. I wish I could steal her away 
from the old ogre, if only for a week. But I 
suppose you are right, Wynn: he might be 
dreadfully rude to us.” 

“ Let me tackle him, mamma,” said Phil, 
who had come up unobserved behind the 
speakers. “ It will take a pretty heavy knock- 
down from Old Flint to floor me. I’d like the 
fun of it. I’ll ride over this evening and 

Beard the lion in his den, 

The Dillon in his hall,” 

paraphrased the boy. Honest Injun ! 
mamma, we ought to ask her to the picnic to- 


A BREAK IN THE GLOOM. 


95 


morrow. After all the nice things I heard you 
say to her at the junction, I donT see how you 
can cut her out like this.’’ 

And we won’t, — we won’t,” said his 
mother, eagerly. Really, Wynn, Phil is 
right. A few gruff words won’t hurt him.” 

As you please, my dear,” said her hus- 
band, lightly. Keep your temper, Phil, — 
that’s all. Remember, Dillon is a sour, lonely, 
loveless old man; and be a gentleman, even 
if he is not.” 

All right, sir,” was the answer ; and Phil, 
who had pleasant memories of the pretty little 
girl to whom he had given his place in the 
lunch room, was soon cantering off over the 
old Indian trail on his own bay pony, as gal- 
lant a young prince as ever essayed to dare an 
ogre in his mountain den. 

Though Markham’s ” was the next station 
to Blackstone Ridge on the railway, the moun- 
tain road was a much longer route, and it was 
fully an hour before the boy reached the 
smoky heights that Uncle Dave and his Works 
held for their own. 

“ My, but it’s tough luck on a girl to live up 
here,” was Phil’s mental comment, as he 


96 


A BEEAK m THE GLOOM. 


guided his pony over the black cinder road, 
past the roaring furnaces, the belching chim- 
neys, to the tall, grim house behind the spiked 
iron gates. 

A sweet young face was pressed against the 
bars. “ Lessons were over for the day, and 
Kitty was watching for the postman, in hopes 
he would have a letter from St. Ursula’s. 
Mother Paula had written twice, — sweet, 
bright letters that had seemed like stars in 
the little exile’s night. And last week there 
had been a six-page epistle from Jeanie Riggs, 
brimful of news, over which Kitty had laughed 
and cried at once. But there was no letter 
to-day. Uncle Dave had gone off somewhere 
with his old carpet sack, and said he would 
not be back to-night. Cripps had one of her 
grim, silent spells, and w^ould not talk; so it 
was rather a sad, wistful little face that, look- 
ing out of the iron bars, saw the “ Prince ” 
riding up to the “ dungeon doors.” So the old 
fairy stories would have said; but as Kitty 
did not live in fairy times, all she saw was a 
sturdy rosy-cheeked boy in a gray sweater, 
who drew up his pony at her uncle’s gate. 

How do you do? ” he said, a little shyly. 


A BEEAK IlSr THE GLOOM. 


97 


I suppose you douT remember me, but we 
all met down at the junction. I’m Phil Mark- 
ham.” 

Yes ! ” answered Kitty, quickly. “ The 
nice boy who gave me his place at lunch.” 

Oh, any boy would have done that ! ” said 
Phil. But we — mother, I mean, has been 
thinking a lot about you ever since, and won- 
dering how you can stand it up here; and we 
are going to have a picnic to-morrow, and 
thought maybe you’d like to come.” 

“A picnic! Oh, I’d just love it! I’ll ask 
Uncle Dave. But I forgot : he is gone away.” 

“ He is ! My, that is luck ! ” exclaimed Phil, 
in frank relief. Where? ” 

I don’t know, but somewhere far off. He 
won’t be back until to-morrow night.” 

Whew ! ” whistled Phil, triumphantly. 

Then we are all O. K., sure enough. Mother 
wants you, and so does father and everybody. 
We are going to Castle Rock and will have a 
fine time. Chloe has been frying chicken and 
making cake and turnovers all day. I’ll call 
for you early — before eight o’clock.” 

Oh, I’ll be ready, — I’ll be ready, you may 
be sure ! ” said Kitty, delightedly. 


98 


A BEEAK m THE GLOOM. 


Good-bye ! Then look out for me at eight, 
said Phil, nodding and smiling as he rode 
away, quite charmed with the success of a 
mission that had seemed doubtful, to say the 
least; while Kitty fairly danced back to the 
house to tell Cripps of this wonderful break 
in the dull gloom that had enwrapped her 
young life for the last four weeks. 

That there could be any objection to a pic- 
nic sanctioned by such high parental author- 
ity, Kitty never dreamed. 

Never did see no sense in picnics,” said 
Cripps, gruffly. “ Kerrying cold victuals miles 
away, when you kin have a hot dinner at 
home. But ’tain’t none of my business, child, 
whether you come or go.” 

And, as it really seemed no one’s business 
but her own, Kitty went. After the long, 
lonely days and dark, dreary nights of the 
last four weeks, what a gay, glad, bright going 
it was ! Phil came early, as he had promised, 
in a sturdy little wicker pony cart that could 
defy the rocks and ridges of the mountain 
road. Kitty, in a white sailor suit that be- 
longed to the old holidays with papa, was 
waiting for him at the gate. With a gay good- 


A BREAK m THE GLOOM. 


99 


bye to Tim and the dogs, who were wistfully 
watching her departure, the little teacher was 
borne away from the smoking, flaming Ridge 
into the morning dew and sunshine. When 
the last tattered rags of Uncle Dave’s black 
smoke banners vanished in the sunlit air, 
Kitty felt as if she were in another world of 
life and joy. 

Such a merry drive as it was, with the little 
pony cart jolting and jumping over the rough 
road; the arching trees shaking down show- 
ers of jewelled dewdrops as they passed; the 
birds singing; the little bushy-tailed squirrels 
frisking from bough to bough; the bright, 
beautiful morning sunbeams dancing over all ! 

And when they reached the Lodge, what 
uproarious welcome waited them! Mamma 
drew Kitty to her side with a loving kiss, and 
dad’s hand-clasp was quite as warm and 
hearty; while the young Markhams buzzed 
and swarmed about her like bees around a 
new-found flower. There were Letty and 
Rose, somewhere about her own age ; Dick and 
Lou, nine and seven; Jo and Co, as dad had 
nicknamed the inseparable twins of flve ; while 
cousin Rob and cousin Tom, and other 


100 


A BEEAK m THE GLOOM. 


cousins of various ages and sizes, filled up the 
background. Two big covered wagons were 
waiting; and in ten minutes after Kitty’s ar- 
rival the whole assembly had piled in, amid 
boxes and hampers and berry baskets, and 
were rolling along the Indian trail (widened 
now into a fair-sized road) to the picnic 
ground beneath Castle Rock. 

It was a fitting name for the beautiful spot 
where, after about half an hour’s journey, the 
merry caravan paused. In towers and pinna- 
cles that seemed wrought by human hands, the 
great stone cliffs rose above the wooded gorge 
where the little stream burst, a crystal spring, 
from the rocks, widening at their base into 
a tiny lake, as if pausing for thought and 
strength ere it took its winding way through 
the mountain. 

After four weeks under the smoke of Uncle 
Dave’s chimneys, that day under Castle Rock 
seemed almost a glimpse of heaven to the ex- 
cited Kitty. There were games of all kinds 
under the big trees and down the green banks 
of the stream; even a merry half hour of 

Follow my Leader” up the steep rocks. 
There were swings and hammocks and piles 


A BEEAK m THE GLOOM. 


101 


of cushions to rest and nestle in when tired. 
There was a luncheon spread on a snowy 
white cloth upon the green grass, — sand- 
wiches of every known variety, fried chicken 
and beat biscuit and raisin bread; bowls of 
strawberries, bottles of cream. But, above all, 
there was Letty ! After all these long, lonely 
weeks without a girl to speak to, — there was 
Letty, the most bewitching of chums; Letty, 
with her mop of chestnut curls that no ribbon 
could keep in place ; with two roguish dimples 
playing hide-and-seek in her pretty face, and 
her brown eyes dancing with mischief; Letty, 
who, though the oldest girl, had promptly 
handed down all the responsibility of that 
position to quiet Rose, and thought of nothing 
but fun and frolic. Before the day was half 
spent, heart-hungry little Kitty felt she loved 
Letty already. 

Lunch was over, and, with their arms en- 
twined girl fashion, they were strolling under 
the frowning rocks, when Letty paused sud- 
denly and put her hand to her neck. 

Oh, I^ve lost it ! ” she gasped. 

^^What?’^ asked Kitty, sympathetically. 

My locket — grandmother’s locket. She 


102 


A BEEAK m THE GLOOM. 


gave it to me my last birthday, and I told her 
I^d keep it as long as I lived. It has a picture 
in it of the dead aunt I was named for. And, 
oh, grandmother will never, never forgive me 
if it^s gone, — never ! concluded Letty, tragic- 
ally clasping her hands. 

“ Maybe we can find it,” comforted Kitty. 

“ Oh, no, no, we canT ! And I donT dare 
to tell mamma; it will spoil the whole day. 
She told grandma not to give it to me; for I 
lose everything, — rings and pins and every- 
thing. They just seem to spill and scatter 
from me. But there ! I remember now ” 
(Letty’s brown eyes hashed triumphantly). 

I know just where I lost it. When we were 
following my Leader up the rocks, I stumbled 
and felt something about my neck break. O 
Kitty, don’t tell any one else, but let us go and 
look for it ! ” 

Kitty agreed ; though the steep, rugged 
cliffs rising before them seemed anything but 
promising for a find. But Letty’s bright eyes 
could always find rainbows. Cheerily she led 
the way, Kitty following unquestioningly ; 
both girls being too eager in their search to 
note the darkening sky and gathering clouds, 


A BKEAK m THE GLOOM. 


103 


to hear the low rumble of the rising 
storm. 

Higher and higher Letty led on her hapless 
guest, until, startled by a sudden thunderclap, 
both young wanderers paused in affright. 

O Letty, let us go back ! ” cried Kitty. 

It was too late. With the roar as of a thou- 
sand batteries, the swift mountain tempest 
was upon them. 


CHAPTER IX. 


ANITA.’’ 

And such a storm! On the soft, sheltered 
slopes of St. Ursula ’s, Kitty had never seen 
anything like this. Crash after crash of 
thunder shook the mountain, rolling and re- 
verberating continuously from ridge to ridge; 
the blackened sky was rent with forked fire; 
the wind burst like a wild beast from its lair, 
howling and wailing in its wrath. 

Cowering in speechless terror on the rugged 
steeps of Castle Rock, Kitty felt the day of 
judgment had surely come; but Letty, who 
had seen mountain storms before, kept her 
wits. 

Kitty dear, come, come ! ” she cried, grasp- 
ing her companion’s nerveless hand. ‘‘There’s 
an old house up here somewhere. Let us run 
for it. Quick, quick! We’ll be struck if we 
stay out here.” 

Even as she said the words, there came an 
104 


^^ANITA.’^ 


105 


awful crash, a blinding blaze, and a great 
mountain cedar was riven by a thunderbolt 
from root to crown. The two girls fled shriek- 
ing through the rain that was coming down 
in a drenching flood. Over rocks, stones, and 
through brambles and briars, with the thun- 
der shaking the mountain tops, the lightning 
kindling the blackened skies into flame, 
they sped; Letty dragging her almost sense- 
less companion onward, until they stumbled 
into the shelter of a broken porch, behind 
which stretched a low-roofed, half-ruined 
house. As a thunderbolt seemed to cleave 
the heights asunder, Kitty’s guide led her 
into the shaking door, which she burst open 
with scant ceremony. There was a startled 
cry in the darkness within, and then a blaze 
of lightning showed the intruders that their 
shelter was already occupied. A woman had 
started up at their coming, and was staring 
at them with wide, frightened eyes. She held 
a ragged little bundle to her breast, and 
clutched it tighter as she asked in tremulous, 
broken English : 

Why you come here like dis, like dis? 
What you want in dis house? ” 


106 




“ Oh, just to get in from this awful storm ! 
panted Letty, breathlessly. We didn’t know 
there was anybody here; there hasn’t been 
anybody for years. We shall have to stay a 
little while, until the worst is over.” 

Stay ! ” In the semi-darkness they could 
see the woman shake her head. ‘‘ You must 
not stay. No: you must go! Go, I say it, — 
go! ” 

Goodness ! ” gasped Letty ; “ out in a 
storm like this ! Why, we’ll be killed ! ” 

Oh, let us stay here, please, — please ! ” 
cried Kitty, trembling. I am frightened to 
death now. ” 

My husband, he say no — no let people 
in here ! ” murmured the woman, in her 
low, broken voice. He strike, he beat me, 
signorina. ” 

Kitty was quite speechless at this state- 
ment; but Letty, more accustomed to moun- 
tain domesticity, interposed: 

Oh, no, he won’t ; for we shall be gone 
before he comes back! And neither you nor 
your husband has any right here, anyhow. 
This house belongs to the Peytons, and they 
don’t rent it, I know.” 


^^ANITA/' 


107 


The woman’s dark eyes shadowed with a new 
fear. 

Signorina, I had to stop, to stay. I could 
not go. My little Pietro so seeck, — ah, Santa 
Maria, so seeck ! ” 

She turned the ragged bundle to the girls 
as she spoke, showed a puny baby, its face yel- 
low and shrivelled as a withered flower, its 
black eyes rolling piteously from side to side, 
as if begging help. 

Oh, poor, poor little thing ! ” cried Kitty, 
touching the tiny claw of a hand tenderly. 

It is sick indeed.” 

It is dying,” said the more experienced 
Letty. It can’t even cry.” 

My Pietro, — my little Pietro ! ” The hap- 
less mother seemed to have forgotten the un- 
welcome visitors’ presence as she bent her 
anxious face over the poor little creature in 
her arms, murmuring low Italian endear- 
ments. My bambino, my little bambino ! 
Ah, Mother of God, spare him! He is so 
little, so seeck! Santa Maria, Santa Lucia, 
San Giovanni, have pity, have pity ! ” 

The broken words fell like a strain of famil- 
iar music on Kitty’s ear. 


108 


^^ANITA.’’ 


You are a Catholic/’ she said, with quick 
sympathy. 

The woman looked up with dark, hopeless 
eyes. 

No, signorina; no, no! ” she answered. 

Oh, you must be ! ” said Kitty, thinking the 
other did not understand her. “ A Catholic 
— like this — ” she made the Sign of the Cross. 

Signorina Catholic, too? ” 

Yes, yes,” answered Kitty, nodding ; and 
she showed the little pearl rosary she wore 
beneath her sleeve. 

With a hoarse sob, the woman fell on her 
knees, and, catching the silver cross, pressed 
it to her lips. Then she dropped it, all 
a tremble. 

^^Ah, I forget, — I forget! I am Catholic 
now no more — no more. He, my husband, 
Pietro’s father, Americano. I can be Catho- 
lic no more.” 

Oh, but you can — you must ! ” said Kitty, 
appalled at such apostasy. 

American husband say no, no, no,” re- 
peated the other, shaking her head. 

What is she talking about? ” asked Letty, 
curiously. 


^^ANITA.” 


109 


But Kitty was listening breathlessly to 
revelations that were dreadful indeed to her 
simple faith. 

No church, no priest, no blessing,’’ con- 
tinued the poor woman ; no baptism for the 
poor bambino; nozing, nozing, nozing, sig- 
norina, — nozing good.” 

Your baby hasn’t been baptized ! ” ex- 
claimed Kitty, in new dismay. 

“ Baptized ! Why, of course it hasn’t,” said 
Letty, lightly. “ It isn’t more than six months 
old.” 

Oh, but it ought to have been baptized 
long ago I Now it is going to die without 
baptism. And there is no priest or church or 
anything near. O Letty, what can we do?” 
said Kitty, desperately; a sudden sense of 
responsibility falling heavily upon her young 
soul. 

Nothing,” answered Letty. See how the 
poor little thing is gasping ! It is dying now.” 

My baby, my baby ! ” wailed the poor 
mother, as she sank upon her knees, holding 
the struggling little form to her breast. Ah, 
Mother of God, help him, — help my little 
Pietro ! Santa Maria, help ! ” 


110 




The wind shrieked down the mined chimney 
as if in mockery of the cry; peals of thunder 
shook the mountain ; the lightning flamed. It 
was as if all the powers of evil ruled this piti- 
ful death scene, and defied the frightened 
little girl who stood there, with the sweet old 
teaching of faith and hope echoing in her 
heart and soul. She was young for so solemn 
a duty, but there was no one else. She could 
baptize the dying little baby; she should, she 
must. 

She glanced around the wretched room, 
where the rain was pouring in half a dozen 
places through the leaking roof, and recalled 
the baptisms she had witnessed at St. Ursula’s, 
when little girls had sometimes been received 
into the Church : how Sister Felicie had 
heaped the altar with white flowers, and Sis- 
ter Carmel had led the joyous music of the 
choir, and Father Anselm had poured the 
saving water from a silver vessel over the 
fair bowed heads; while all the girls looked 
on in solemn awe at the holy rite, that, as they 
knew, made the little ones children of God 
and heirs of heaven.” 

Kitty fairly trembled as she thought of her 




111 


weak young hand daring to assume such holy 
power, and yet the words of Father Anselm^s 
little sermon were clear and strong. “ You 
should all learn how to baptize, my chil- 
dren; for it is a sacred duty when there is 
not a priest at hand and there is danger 
of death.’’ Surely, with that gasping little 
form before her, it was a sacred duty ” now. 

And then all Kitty’s trembling ceased, and 
she grew strong and calm. She took the 
broken pitcher from the table and filled it 
with the clear rain water that came pouring 
through the roof; and, while Letty stared in 
amazement, she knelt down at the poor 
mother’s side. 

I am going to baptize your baby,” she said 
softly, “ so that it can go to heaven and be 
happy there with God and our Blessed 
Mother.” 

The light of the old unforgotten Faith 
flashed back into the dark, startled eyes lifted 
to Kitty’s face. 

Signorina, yes, yes ! ” she said, in a broken 
voice. 

And then it seemed as if for a solemn 
minute the shriek of the wind and the crash 


112 


^^ANITA.” 


of the storm were hushed as the little girl 
poured the water reverently over the death- 
pale baby brow and spoke the holy words. For 
a second the struggling little form was still, 
the black eyes were uplifted to Kitty in a look 
she never forgot, and then, with a feeble tre- 
mor, the baby was dead. The unhappy mother 
burst into a wild passion of grief as she held 
the tiny lifeless form to her breast. 

But it has gone to heaven, — it has gone 
to heaven ! ’’ comforted Kitty, with a strange 
sense of joy in her own heart. 

“ Ah, signorina, yes, yes ! the woman 
paused in the midst of her piteous outcry. 

The blessed baptism was his, my sweet bam- 
bino, at last, at last ! Signorina, it was you — 
you came, the good God’s angel. And Anita 
will never forget, — she will never, never for- 
get.” 

And while the two girls still spoke soothing 
words of consolation to the poor mother, a 
chorus of shouts resounded without ; and Phil 
and cousin Tom and Bob, who had been sent 
to look up the wanderers, burst in upon the 
mournful scene. 

We told mother you were here, girls ! ” ex- 


^^ANITA.” 


113 


claimed Phil. But, my, youVe given us a 
scare! We piled into the wagons at the first 
rumble of the storm and made for the Pey- 
tons, and thought you were with us until we 
counted heads there. Mother is almost dead, 
and father and Mr. Peyton are scouriug the 
roads below; but I remembered this old roost 
and thought you might have broken in here — • 
but, hallo ! whom have you got with you? ” 

“ O Phil, hush, hush ! said Letty, softly. 

IPs a poor woman, and her little baby has 
just died. We’ve had an awful time, Phil. 
Kitty and I were out looking for something I 
had lost.” 

Your chain and locket,” said Phil, 
promptly. I found them in the sandwich 

basket, and mother says ” 

Oh, I don’t mind what she says,” inter- 
rupted Letty, just so they are found ! I could 
never have looked grandmamma in the face 
again if I had lost poor dead Aunt Letty’s pic- 
ture. We can go home now, Kitty ” (and Letty 
drew a sigh of relief), — we can go home 
with easy minds.” 

But Kitty’s eyes were fixed pityingly on the 
poor mother who sat in one of the broken 


114 


^^ANITA.’’ 


chairs, the cold little form stretched in her 
lap. 

Oh, I hate to leave you like this ! ’’ she 
said, laying her hand on the woman’s shoul- 
der. Will there be no one to give you any 
help? ” 

Anita, as she called herself, roused with a 
shiver. 

Yes, signorina, — ^yes ; he will come, my 
husband, my little Pietro’s father, — he will 
come to help. O signorina, if you will go, — 
go now ! It is best.” 

And then Kitty made a big sacrifice indeed. 
She loosened from her wrist the dear little 
pearl rosary that had been Sister Felicie’s 
parting gift, and pressed it quietly into 
Anita’s hand. 

Keep it,” she whispered ; and don’t for- 
get that your little baby is in heaven.” 

And then she was gone with the rest into 
the breaking sunshine; for the swift storm 
had already spent its rage; the black clouds 
were scurrying in scattered drifts down the 
valley; the wind, softened into a playful 
breeze, was scattering the glistening drops 
from leaf and bough, and a glorious rainbow 


"^ANITA.” 


115 


arched the mountain. As the young people 
hurried down the narrow path to rejoin the 
rest of the anxious party waiting at Mr. Pey- 
ton’s, about half a mile from Castle Rock, a 
big sandy-bearded man, striding up the 
heights, stepped aside to let them pass, and 
stared with hard, curious, unfriendly eyes as 
they went by. 

It is the baby’s father, that poor thing’s 
husband, I am sure,” said Letty. He is going 
home to her.” 

O Letty, do you think so? Poor, poor 
Anita ! ” said Kitty, pitifully ; for she recog- 
nized the coarse, hard face that had roused 
Tim and his buddies ” into such fierce an- 
tagonism. The father ” and husband ” 
taking his way to the desolate mother’s side 
was Buck Benson. 


CHAPTER X. 


STORM-BEATEN. 

Now the same rainbow that arched the path 
of the gay little picnic party as it made its 
way down the mountain gleamed over Uncle 
Dave as he re-entered the big iron-spiked gates 
of his home. But he did not see its beauty 
or its promise. The fierce storm that had 
blackened the heights as his returning train 
swept through crashing thunderbolts and 
blazing light, had seemed a fitter finish to a 
bitter day of strife. 

He had been at a stockholders’ meeting in 
the city, — a meeting that had been called to 
discuss the wave of discontent that was sweep- 
ing over the mountain region and affecting all 
its industries. The men working in mines 
and furnaces and forges were growing restless 
and dissatisfied with their condition. Sullen 
threats and mutterings were heard on every 
side. The meeting had been an excited one, 
116 


STORM-BEATElSr. 


117 


many of those present advocating yielding to 
the demands of the workmen, and giving bet- 
ter hours and better pay. 

But Uncle Dave had stood grim and im- 
movable. 

Not another cent of pay,^^ he had declared 
determinedly ; “ and not another minute of 
time! Once we give those foreign beggars 
their heads, we can never draw them in again. 
Let them kick, gentlemen, — let them kick! I 
have held the reins for thirty years and can 
hold them still.’’ 

‘‘Are you quite sure of that?” one of the 
objectors had asked gravely. 

“ Sure enough to risk my own neck and 
head on my grip,” Uncle Dave had replied 
grimly ; and he had turned the vote, and 
carried his point against the earnest protesta- 
tion he could not altogether silence. 

But the fight had been a close one. There 
had been some plain talk about his ways and 
methods that rankled in the old ironmaster’s 
after-thought. One “ beardless boy,” as Uncle 
Dave had called the thirty-year-old speaker, 
had declared the days were past when, like 
the giant in the child’s fairy tale, the strong 


118 


STORM-BEATEN. 


and rich could “ grind men’s bones to make 
their bread.” Uncle Dave had fired up at this 
speech, and there had been hot words between 
the old man and the young. Altogether, it 
had been a hard day ; and though Old Flint,” 
as the meeting had called him when his back 
was turned, had come home a victor, his grim 
face wore no signs of triumph, and he felt 
very tired and bitter and old. 

The sight of his own black, smoking chim- 
neys and fiery furnaces did not soften his fierce 
mood. Was it only his fancy, or did the 
grimy, half-clad hands, pouring out from the 
forges and coke ovens at the stroke of the 
bell, look at him with sullen, angry eyes? 
Did the others, turning in for the night 
shift,” glower at him defiantly? Were those 
gaunt, dark-faced women standing at the 
door of their cabins cursing him in their own 
tongue as he passed? Was the great black 
monster bestriding the Ridge, with its fiery eye 
and smoking breath, indeed like the giant of 
the fairy tales grinding men’s bones to make 
his bread?” Growing fiercer and more sav- 
age at the thought. Uncle Dave strode up the 
black cinder path, downed ” with a muttered 


STORM-BEATEN. 


119 


oath the dogs that came leaping to meet 
him, and stalked grimly into the gloomy 
house. 

There was no one to meet him. Usually 
Kitty, striving bravely to keep her Queen’s 
Promise ” to Mother Paula, was waiting in 
the gloomy hallway, wearing one of the white 
dresses bought last year for her summer out- 
ing with papa. The white dresses had been 
Cripps’ suggestion. 

And, almost unconsciously to himself, 
David Dillon had learned to look for the 
pretty white-robed figure, with its friendly 
greeting to Uncle Dave,” as a very pleasant 
addition to his home-coming. 

Where is Niece Katherine?” he asked, 
when, according to the usual rule at his en- 
trance, Cripps brought in the dinner. 

Gone off on a picnic,” was the brief 
response. 

On what? ” asked Uncle Dave, fiercely. 

A picnic,” repeated Cripps, sourly enough, 
for she had been anxious all the evening; 

one of them fool affairs where you take your 
victuals to the woods and get caught in the 
storm.” 


120 


STOKM-BEATEN". 


In the storm ! Do you mean to tell me 
that you let that girl go out in the storm we 
had to-day, woman? ” 

<< ’Twasn^t any of my business to keep 
her,^^ answered Cripps, who had always been 
an equal match in temper for her employer. 

And I wouldn^t pen up a little creature like 
that in such a hole as this, anyhow; so when 
decent folks like the Markhams come for 
her 

‘‘ The Markhams ! exclaimed Uncle Dave, 
fiercely. “ She went with the Markhams, you 
say? Do you mean to tell me that Wynn 
Markham dared to come to this house and 
meddle with my family affairs after the stand 
he has taken against me? I — I never heard 
of such — such insolence ! ’’ 

I donT know nothing about it,” said 
Cripps, grimly. Never heerd you count that 
lonely little creature as your family. But 
here she comes back anyway. And thank the 
Lord I say, for my heart’s been jumping about 
her all evening,” added Cripps under her 
breath, as at the sound of wheels crunching 
the cinder path, she hurried to open the door 
for Kitty, whose sweet young voice came 


STORM-BEATEN. 


121 


clearly to Uncle Dave through the gathering 
darkness. 

Oh, thank you so much for bringing me 
home, Phil ! And ITl send back the dry clothes 
your dear mother lent me as soon as I can. 
Oh, I’ve had such a lovely, lovely day in spite 
of the storm, — such a happy day with you all, 
Phil ! ” 

Try it again, then.” And Uncle Dave 
caught a ring of his father’s voice in Phil’s 
manly tone. Come and stay a few weeks. 
We’ll give you the time of your life. My ! ” 
(and the speaker looked up at the grim, closed 
house), I don’t see how you stand it here, 
anyhow ! ” 

It is lonesome,” said Kitty, truthfully. 

Lonesome ! I’d as lief be in jail at once,” 
was the frank reply. “ I’d make a bolt from 
Old Flint if I had to tramp it on the highway. 
But you can’t, of course ; so I’ll come and steal 
you away again,” added Phil. And he lifted 
his cap in a gay good-night and drove off, 
leaving the unsuspecting little Kitty to face 
a storm far worse than that which had burst 
upon her in the mountain. 

For every thoughtless, merry word had 


122 


STORM-BEATElSr. 


reached Uncle Dave’s ear. He was sore 
enough already after the day’s hard fight ; now 
he was conscious of a strange new sting that 
goaded him into fury. They were turning her 
against him, this little white-robed girl who 
had brought a touch of light and sweetness 
into his grim, lonely darkness. They were 
turning her against him, too. And he had 
been good to her, he thought, — good after his 
own rough fashion. He had meant to be 
better still. Only yesterday, on his way to 
town, he had stopped at a stock farm and 
picked out a gray pony he had promised her, 
gruffly insisting that it must be gentle and 
sure-footed even at an extra price. And she 
must have a safe sidesaddle, too; for the 
mountain roads were rough. 

Through all the hard business of the day, 
the thought of these purchases came every 
now and then with an odd softness that he 
found strangely pleasant, like the touch of 
Kitty’s little hand when she sometimes laid 
it shyly on his shoulder as she stopped in the 
grim study to bid him good-night. 

But now — now all these thoughts and fan- 
cies were swept utterly away in the fierce, 


STORM-BEATEiT. 


123 


fiery flood of his wrath, as, all unconscious 
of any wrongdoing, Kitty, looking especially 
pretty in a white suit and flower-wreathed 
hat that Letty had lent her to replace her 
own storm-drenched clothes, fluttered into 
the gloomy dining-room. Uncle Dave’s face 
blackened with a frown such as she had never 
seen before even on his grim brow. 

“ What do you mean by this? ” he asked. 

“ Uncle Dave ! ” exclaimed Kitty tremu- 
lously, her soft blue eyes wide and startled at 
his greeting. 

What do you mean by it? ” he repeated 
in a tone of thunder. Don’t gape at me, you 
mealy-mouthed little hypocrite ! What do you 
mean by defying me like this, — stealing off 
without my knowledge, against my will, with 
an insolent young puppy that deserves to be 
caned from my door?” 

Oh, I don’t know — I— I don’t know, in- 
deed, what you are talking about ! ” faltered 
Kitty, in bewilderment. 

<^You don’t know,— you don’t know!” 
roared the angry old man, lashing himself into 
greater fury as he gave way to his wrath. 

Don’t lie to me like that. Niece Katherine! 


124 


STORM-BEATEK 


Didn’t I hear you talking to him just now? 
Didn’t I hear every word? You’re like all 
the rest — all the rest, — ready to bite the hand 
that is feeding you. I might have known when 
I took you in out of that nest of Romish vipers 
that you would turn and sting.” 

But the cruel words missed their mark. 
Never in her wildest fancy could little Kitty 
associate a nest of Romish vipers with sweet 
St. Ursula’s. She only stared in speechless 
terror now at Uncle Dave. 

If I could cast you off like the beggar you 
are, I’d do it ! ” he continued fiercely ; I’d 
do it gladly. I can’t; for your dead father’s 
sake, I can’t. But if you stand up against me 
as he did, girl, — if you’re fool enough to 
stand up against me as he did ” 

Uncle Dave,” interrupted Kitty, her 
cheeks fiaming, her blue eyes hashing, “ I can’t 
listen, I won’t listen, if you say anything 
about papa — my own dear dead papa, — I 
won’t listen to a word ! I’ll leave the room, — 
I’ll leave the house ! ” she said desperately. 

I’ll get the Sisters to take me to the orphan 
asylum with the other poor girls. I’ll scrub 
and wash and ” 


STORM-BEATEN. 


125 


Not while I have lock and key to keep 
you here/’ said Uncle Dave savagely. No, 
Niece Katherine, you are to stay here, you 
understand, — to stay here. And I’m master 
here. I’ll have you know; and what I say is 
the law!” (The speaker brought down his 
fist heavily to emphasize his words. ) “ I’ll 

have no more running away; no more jigging 
and junketing with people who are doing their 
best to rob and ruin us both. You are to stay 
here until I find some school where you will 
be taught and trained as I want you taught 
and trained; and it won’t be by any Romish 
priests and nuns, you may be sure of that.” 

And Uncle Dave rose and stalked fiercely 
out of the room, leaving his dinner untasted; 
and Kitty, with the blaze in her eyes, — the 
fiash that told Uncle Dave that he had roused 
the same spirit in her gentle breast that had 
parted the two brothers fifteen years ago. 

Land alive I ” exclaimed Cripps, who had 
discreetly retired during the family storm. 

Who’d have thought that a picnic would 
have roused up Dave Dillon like this? But 
he is sore against the Markhams about that 
lawsuit the Judge has brought against him; 


126 


STORM-BEATEN. 


sore against the Peytons, sore against ’most 
everybody. Looks as if he was against the 
world, and the world against him. But sit 
down and eat your dinner, child. Land sakes, 
you’re trembling all over ! ” 

Oh, I can’t eat any dinner ! It would 
choke me, Cripps. I want to go away from 
this dreadful place. I want to go away from 
Uncle Dave forever.” 

Land, I don’t wonder, child, — I don’t 
wonder. Looks as if you had struck crooked 
ways. But you can never tell where crooked 
ways lead, child, if you follow them up 
patient; that’s what I try to think when I 
look at my poor Tim. But they’re hard walk- 
ing, child, — hard walking, sure.” 

Kitty did not hear; she was standing by 
the window, looking out into the darkness, 
her whole being shaken with rebellion, revolt. 
Not a star in the summer night, that Uncle 
Dave blackened with the smoke of his chim- 
neys ; not a flower in the hard, bare earth that 
glowed and glared with the flery eyes of his 
furnaces; not a gleam of light in her own 
young life; even the pleasant friends she had 
made to-day forbidden her. For a moment it 


STORM-BEATEN. 


127 


seemed as if the sweet faith kindled in the 
sanctuary of St. Ursula^s was fading. Sister 
Felicie’s little sacristan felt deserted by heaven 
and earth. As for loving ” Uncle Dave, — 
cruel, unjust, hard Uncle Dave! Kitty 
clenched her little hands and teeth as she 
stood looking out into the firelit darkness. 
Never, never again would she even try. 

Land ! now, ainT that a shame? Cripps’ 
harsh voice came in a tone of lament through 
the open door behind Kitty. ^^When it was 
growing so pert and pretty too! Kerens that 
little rose slip of yours, child, blown over and 
killed in the storm.’^ 

And Kitty turned with a start to see Cripps 
standing under the lamplight, the Queen^s 
Promise all wilted and broken in her hand. 


CHAPTER XI. 


A REPLANTING. 

O Cripps ! ” It was as if some hard, cruel 
grasp tightening on Kitty’s heart loosened at 
sight of the wilted plant, and she sprang for- 
ward to Cripps’ side. “ My Queen’s Promise, 
— my poor little Queen’s Promise ! ” 

It is a shame, sure ! ” said Cripps, as she 
shook off the blackened earth from the 
broken twig. “ And just look how it had taken 
root, little threads running out everywhere! 
They do say that if you can once get through 
this hard, crusty earth, things grow fine; and 
I never did see a shoot perk up so quick and 
strong as this. But the blow this evening 
turned the pot clean over. You couldn’t ex- 
pect such a young thing to stand against that 
storm. If I had only seen it a little sooner! 
But it’s done for now, sure.” 

“ Oh, I’m afraid it is ! ” said Kitty, brokenly. 

138 


A EEPLANTING. 


129 


^^And it was all my fault. I put it out on 
that ledge to catch the sunshine. O Cripps ! 
And then, to that good creature’s bewilder- 
ment, Kitty sank down in a chair, and, with 
her face in her hands on the hard dining- 
table, she burst into a wild passion of tears. 
It was as if the last tie to the sweet past had 
gone through her own fault. 

Land, don’t go on like that, child, just 
about a rose shoot ! ” said Cripps. Why, 
Tim can go down to Martin’s gap and get you 
another one, twice as good, to-morrow. Old 
Miss Martin trims her rosebushes most every 
week.” 

Thank you, Cripps ! But it wouldn’t be the 
same,” sobbed Kitty, — no, it could never be 
the same.” 

great sight better and bigger,” per- 
sisted Cripps. ‘‘Won’t it, lad?” she added, 
turning to Tim, who had come in the door in 
time to hear his mother’s efforts at consola- 
tion and cheer. 

“ The biggest I can find,” said Tim, dis- 
mayed at his young teacher’s grief. “ Don’t 
cry. Missy, — don’t cry like that; and I’ll have 
a rose-tree full of buds up here for you to- 


130 


A REPLANTING. 


morrow, if I have to search the whole valley 
through for it.” 

O Tim, it is good of you ! But it would 
not be the Queen’s Promise. It would not 
come from St. Ursula’s, and grow around 
the chapel window, and have a lovely story, 
like mine.” 

And Kitty broke into softer grief now, as 
tender memories came pressing upon her, 
sweeping away all the hardness and bitterness 
from her young heart, — the altar, the sanc- 
tuary, the sweet, dim sacristy where she 
had worked at Sister Felicie’s side; Mother 
Paula’s low, guiding whispers as she held the 
little May Queen to her loving heart; the 
promise Kitty had given, — the Queen’s Prom- 
ise. Ah ! it had been broken, in heart and will 
too, in this evening’s fierce storm of passion 
and pain. 

O Cripps, it has roots, you say ! Do you 
think it could ever grow again?” 

It might,” replied Cripps, doubtfully. 

Let us try it, then ! ” said Kitty, starting 
up eagerly. Let us plant my poor little 
broken Queen’s Promise, and see if it will live 
again.” 


A KEPLANTING. 


131 


And, urged by the sweet, pleading voice, 
Tim went out into the darkness and brought 
in a wooden bucket, full of the soft, 
scratched earth from under the cedars. 
The green top of the Queen’s Promise, with 
its tender, opening leaves, was snapped off 
hopelessly; but the brown stem, with its 
spreading little roots, was planted again, and 
watered plentifully with Kitty’s falling tears. 

It will grow. Missy,” cheered Tim, with 
a nod of his crooked head. When a twig is 
deep-rooted like that, it’s bound to live and 
grow.” 

Put it on the back porch, out of Dave 
Dillon’s way,” said Cripps. He is that short 
and savage these days you never can tell what 
is going to rile him. There’s trouble brewing 
at the Works, any one with half an eye can 
see; but that ain’t any reason why he should 
growl and roar at them that’s doing him no 
harm. And glad I was to see that you had 
the spirit to give it back to him, child, to- 
night.” 

Did I give it back to him? ” asked Kitty, 
who had only a vague, blurred remembrance 
of the exciting scene with Uncle Dave. 


132 


A EEPLANTING. 


Indeed you did ! answered Cripps, with 
a grim chuckle. Flung back at him fine. 
He-he-he-he ! Cripps’ hickory-nut visage 
actually broke into a laugh. “ It certainly did 
take away his breath to have a bit of a girl 
like you, that he took to do for against his 
will, stand up and tell him straight that if 
he gave her any more of his talk, she’d leave 
his house and be done with him and his for- 
ever, — go to the orphan asylum and scrub. 
Land, you did lay it on to him, sure ! ” 

Really, Cripps, did I say all that? ” asked 
Kitty, breathlessly. “ He said something 
about papa — my own dear, dead papa, — and I 
got awfully angry, I know.” 

“ Yes, that you did,” chuckled the old 
woman, delightedly. How them eyes of 
yours did blaze ! It wasn’t any of my business 
to meddle in a family row, but I was peeping 
out of the pantry door, just tickled to death. 
You hit the sore places in that leathery old 
hide of his, sure ; for I’ve heard folks say that, 
when they were boys, he and your father were 
as close as peas in a pod. But now I reckon 
he’s forgot what love means; he has shut it 


A EEPLANTING. 


133 


out of his heart so long, — clean forgot what 
it means.” 

What love means ! What love means ! The 
words woke trembling echoes in Kitty’s heart. 
Uncle Dave had forgotten indeed. But she, 
fresh from the schoolroom, the sanctuary, 
the altar of St. Ursula’s, — she must not for- 
get; no, she must not forget. 


Uncle Dave sat in his big leather chair in 
his study, that seemed darker and grimmer 
than usual to-night. The lamp, with its green 
shade, flung but a small circle of light on the 
desk, strewn with papers and pamphlets that 
demanded his attention; all else was gloom, 
— heavy gloom, through which the tall book- 
cases, the black specimens of ore and coal, the 
models of new forge and furnace just sent 
for his approval, showed darkly. Even the 
one long window, opening in the side of the 
house, was too screened by a ragged cedar to 
admit more than a gleam of light. 

The old ironmaster had been looking over 
the mail that had accumulated in his two 


134 


A EEPLANTING. 


days’ absence. There were circulars, advertise- 
ments, business proposals, heavy orders ” of 
various kinds for iron, steel, coke and coal, 
and for all that the black, hard mountain 
ridge, blazing with his fires, roaring and pant- 
ing with his engines, could yield. But there 
was not one line of sympathy, of human inter- 
est, not one word of cheer or kindness, hope 
or love, until he took up a neat white envelope 
bearing the mark Mount Saint Ursula, ad- 
dressed in a clear graceful hand to Miss 
Kitty Dillon, Blackstone Ridge.” 

The frown darkened on his grizzled brows 
as he looked at the letter and superscription. 

From the Romish convent, — the Romish 
nuns ! ” he thought fiercely. They were hold- 
ing the girl still under their stealthy influence, 
— holding her by those Jesuitical arts of 
which he had heard so much, and holding her 
against his wish and will; teaching her to 
deceive, defy, disobey him. He had a proof 
to-night, when she — his brother’s child. Jack’s 
little girl — had dropped the gentle mask the 
nuns had doubtless taught her to wear, and, 
flashing up into sudden passion, had threat- 
ened to leave him, to go back to them. This, 


A EEPLANTING. 


135 


then, was their treacherous teaching. Ah ! he 
would have no more of it, — no more of it, he 
vowed bitterly. 

I will break this convent business off now 
and here ! ’’ he muttered, as, with a fierce 
gesture, he tore the letter in two and fiung 
it in his waste-basket. And I’ll take care 
that Niece Katherine’s Popish correspondence 
after this goes the same way. As her natural, 
her legal guardian, it is my right to remove 
all such nefarious infiuences.” 

And Uncle Dave went on with his mail, and 
had just buried the nefarious influence” 
of the St. Ursula letter under some dozen 
rejected pamphlets and papers, when a low 
voice at his elbow made him start, and he 
turned, to see Kitty standing beside him. 

“ I knocked three times and you didn’t hear 
me. Uncle Dave; so — so I had to come in. I 
could not go to sleep without speaking to you. 
Uncle Dave, — without telling you how sorry 
I am that I said all I did this evening.” 

The speaker’s face was very red, her hands 
clasping and unclasping each other nervously. 
The words were hard to say; for the same 
proud spirit that Uncle Dave had roused in 


136 


A EEPLANTING. 


her brave, hotheaded father fifteen years ago 
was strong in little Kitty’s breast. But she 
must not forget, — she must not forget, not 
even when Uncle Dave turned his grizzled 
brows upon her and she met the flash of the 
eyes, cold and hard as his own steel. 

‘‘Oh, you are sorry, are you? Well, you 
needn’t be; it will do no good. You’ve shown 
me what you are. Niece Katherine; and I am 
glad of it, — glad my eyes were opened, and I 
can’t be honey-fuggled any more by your soft, 
sly nun’s ways. They’ve taught you well. 
Niece Katherine. You had nearly fooled me ! ” 

“ Fooled you. Uncle Dave! ” repeated Kitty, 
in bewilderment. “ I — I don’t know what you 
mean ” 

“ Oh, that’s enough ! ” he interrupted, 
harshly, — “ quite enough. Niece Katherine ! I 
don’t want to hear another word. I thought, 
I hoped — well, no matter what I thought and 
hoped; it’s all over and done with. You will 
stay here. It’s your place, and I’m your 
guardian, — ^your natural, legal guardian. It’s 
my business to look out for you, and I’ll do it 
in my own way, and I’ll stand no interference 
from any man or woman on earth. Now, no 


A REPLANTING. 


137 


more of your convent cant. We understand 
each other, Niece Katherine.” 

‘^No, — no, we donT, Uncle Dave!” faltered 
Kitty. You don’t understand at all. I’m 
very sorry I got angry and spoiled everything. 
Uncle Dave. If you’ll just forgive and for- 
get ” 

“ No ! ” roared Uncle Dave, savage with the 
fierce pang that rent his tough old heart; for 
the blue eyes lifted to his face, the low, trem- 
bling voice in his ear, were the eyes and the 
voice of the little boy-brother of long ago. 
“ I never forgive and I never forget, girl, as 
you should know. No more of your convent 
cant, I say! Go to bed, — go to bed! I’ll not 
hear another word from you.” 

And, choked by the hard sobs rising in her 
throat, blinded by the tears she must not let 
fall, Kitty made her way somehow out of the 
cruel presence, and up the darkened stairs 
to her own room, all Unconscious that there 
had been a breathless, bewildered listener to 
this interview. Crouching in the darkness, 
without the half-open door, crooked Tim, who 
had been sent to light the iron lamp in the 
hall, had heard every word. 


138 


A EEPLANTING. 


« My ! ” he gasped. But how could he 
talk to pretty little Missy like that ! If I was 
straight and strong as my dad, I^d wallop the 
life out of him for it, I^m sure. To talk to 
that pretty little girl like that, and she want- 
ing to make friends again so kind and nice! 
I wouldn’t want to be friends, I know. But 
the catechism stories say you have to for- 
give, — you have to forgive even folks like 
Buck Benson; and little Missy stands by the 
catechism stories straight, for sure.” 

All unconscious of the lesson she had given 
her pupil, Kitty made her way up the dark 
stairs to her own room, where the lamp Cripps 
lit for her every night was burning dimly on 
the dressing-table, and the tall, ghostly mir- 
rors were gleaming faintly in its light, and 
the high-curtained bed rose grim and gloomy 
as a catafalque in the wavering shadows. She 
fell on her knees by the open window, and, 
with her face resting in her hands, she looked 
out into the darkness through the tears that 
came, in no passionate outburst now, but 
falling slowly, drearily, scarce heeded, from 
the hopeless young eyes. 

This was to be her place always. Uncle Dave 


A REPLANTING. 


139 


had said, — always; this to be her life, her 
home. No love to brighten it, no faith to bless 
it, no friends to cheer it. Uncle Dave was 
angry with her forever; the Queen’s Promise 
was broken; and even her pearl rosary was 
gone. But into the blackness of the gloom 
there beamed a starry memory; the baby — 
poor Anita’s little baby. O surely, somewhere 
in that far-off heaven she could not see, a 
little baptized spirit was praying for her to- 
night ! 


CHAPTEE XII. 


SHADOWS AND WARNINGS. 

Longer and duller than usual seemed the 
days after the family storm. It was hot sum- 
mer on the Ridge now ; and, though the smoke- 
clouds darkened the blaze of the July sun, the 
heat was only the heavier and more oppres- 
sive. There was a smothering pall over the 
baked earth that seemed to flame back flerce 
defiance from forge and furnace and coke 
oven. The great engines roared and panted, 
the dumps ” burst in fiery floods down the 
mountain-side; there was no rest, no change. 
The grimy, half -clothed men brushed away 
the dripping sweat from their brows and went 
on with their increasing work, — stirring and 
pouring the molten metal, feeding the undying 
flames into fiercer strength; while the smoth- 
ered fires of hate and revolt in their breasts 
grew daily and hourly. 

They were foreigners mostly, these hands 
140 


SHADOWS AND WARNINGS. 


141 


of Uncle Dave, — Poles, Russians, Italians, 
who had come direct from steamer wharves 
to Blackstone Ridge. At first they had 
worked with a dull, stolid endurance for 
what seemed to their Old-World ideas good 
pay. But whispers of better things had come 
to them; they were beginning to learn the 
language, the customs of this new country; 
to understand their freedom, their strength. 
A spirit wakened in them that could be wisely 
guided, or unwisely roused into lawless vio- 
lence. Buck Benson, raging with fury and 
vengeance, was doing all he could just now 
to rouse it. There were meetings these sum- 
mer nights, — meetings held in lonely places 
on the mountains, where dark eyes fiashed 
and grimy arms waved passionately, and men 
raved in foreign speech against Old Flint 
and his iron laws. 

But even Buck Benson’s evil work might 
have been counteracted by a guiding, soothing 
influence, if Uncle Dave had not been indeed 
“ flint ” in his hard, bitter prejudice. For 
Father Davis, who in his wide mission work 
had learned all ways and tongues, had come 
on his annual visit to these mountains. His 


142 


SHADOWS AND WARNINGS. 


station for this year was at the little mining 
village of Rayburn, seven or eight miles be- 
yond Blackstone Ridge. His time at each 
place being limited, he had sent a courteous 
letter to the heads of the various Works 
within a certain radius, requesting that they 
would notify the Catholics in their employ 
of his brief stay in their neighborhood, and 
permit as many as possible to attend the sadly 
infrequent Mass. But Uncle Dave had only 
scowled, and, with an ugly imprecation at 
Romish mummery, torn the letter into bits. 

Tim alone — who, good for nothing, as he 
said, at forge and in mine, found jobs at this 
season of the year on the neighboring farms 
and gardens, was straying home one July 
evening after a few days^ work at Farmer 
Lane’s, with a wonderful story for his young 
teacher’s ears. 

Had a fine time,” he said, as he dropped 
on the low bench of the covered porch where 
Kitty was crocheting. 

‘^Oh, I’m so glad, Tim!” she answered, 
noting a new light in his eyes. What have 
you been doing that was so nice? ” 

^^You wouldn’t guess,” said Tim, with a 


SHADOWS AND WAENINGS. 


143 


chuckle. Land, you’d never guess, Missy ! 
I’ve been to meeting.” 

“Oh, have you, Tim?” There was plain 
disappointment in Kitty’s tone. Evidently 
her weeks of catechism lessons had failed to 
impress. 

“ To your meeting. Missy,” he added. 

“ifi/ meeting?” echoed the little girl, in 
amazement. “ Why — why, we don’t have 
meeting, Tim.” 

“ This was your kind, sure,” continued her 
pupil, positively. “ Altar and cross and can- 
dles, and everything.” 

“ Altar and cross and candles ! ” cried 
Kitty. “ O Tim, where? ” 

“ Down to Rayburn,” replied Tim. “ Mike 
and Pat and Dan and all Farmer Lane’s 
hands went in a big wagon and took me along. 
My, it was fine! It beat the Methodist camp 
last summer all to flinders. There wasn’t 
so much feeding,” he continued, impartially; 
“ but, as Mike says. Catholics don’t go in for 
that.” 

“Catholics?” repeated Kitty, in bewilder- 
ment. “ There isn’t a Catholic church within 
fifty miles. What do you mean?” 


144 


SHADOWS AND WAENINGS. 


I ain^t said nothing ^bout a church, have 
I? asked Tim, in an aggrieved tone. I said 
‘ meeting ’ ; and it was a meeting, sure. The 
hills and the rocks were just black with peo- 
ple; they came from far and near, — Rum- 
fords and Dixons and Peytons, and every- 
where but here. The altar was set up under 
the trees, and just heaped up with flowers, — 
red and white and pink and every color. 
Folks around must have stripped their gar- 
dens bare. And there was the cross on top, 
just like you told me. Missy; and dozens of 
candles a-blazing, and everything just right. 
And the preacher was in a shining coat, with 
lace frills underneath, flne as a king.’^ 

Tim, — O Tim ! ’’ said Kitty, breathlessly, 
her eyes wide open. You must have been to 
Mass.” 

‘‘That’s it— that’s the word. Missy; that’s 
where I have been — to Mass. But Dan told 
me I wasn’t to say mass-meeting, for that 
wouldn’t be right. Dan ain’t no older than 
me, but he knows a lot ; says he’s learned that 
there catechism book clear through. But he’s 
straight as a string and strong, and not like 
me. When folks is straight and strong they 


SHADOWS AN^D WARNINGS. 


145 


can go ahead fast, of course. But they were 
all good to me, sure; got me a good place on 
a nice flat rock, where I could see and hear 
fine. And it was great,’’ said Tim, with a long 
breath. No mourning or shouting; but that 
altar, all heaped with flowers, standing there 
in the sunrise; and the preacher praying low 
and easy; and then all that black crowd of 
folks kneeling with their heads bowed low 
down, so soft and still you could hear the 
little birds in the trees singing.” 

O Tim, Tim ! ” faltered his little teacher. 
“ If I had only known, I could have gone too.” 

That’s what I said,” answered Tim, eagerly, 
— that’s just what I said to the preacher. 
Missy. For, after all the prayers was over, 
and he had put off all those fine clothes and 
was just a plain, straight man, Dan took me 
over to talk to him. There was lots of other 
folks, and so I told Dan, he wouldn’t want to 
bother with a crooked chap like me; but Dan 
said he would, he knew. And he was nice 
sure, — about the nicest preacher I ever saw. 
Shook hands with me, and asked me where I 
worked and what I did, and if I had ever been 
to school or church; and I told him no, but I 


146 


SHADOWS AHD WAENINGS. 


was pretty far along in reading and spelling, 
and that you was helping me every day, and 
I had just got as far as ‘ life everlasting ’ in 
catechism. And he said he couldn’t expect 
much better than that; but to keep right on, 
and he’d be back here in about a month or two 
and hold a meeting nearer to our place, so we 
all could come. And it won’t be a bit too 
soon, Dan says; for these here Dagos need 
some one to preach and pray for them, sure. 
We’re all sitting on a powder-mill, he says; 
and it’s likely to bust up day or night. If 
that preacher could come up and talk to the 
men in their own lingo, it might do some 
good. But the boss is dead set against him, 
Dan says ; wouldn’t even give out he was any- 
where nigh. There hasn’t been any meeting 
for Dagos in this Ridge for over four years, 
and then I was done up in a plaster jacket and 
couldn’t go. But next time I’ll be there, you 
bet ! ” concluded Tim, as he rose to take his 
buddies for their evening swim. 

I’ll go down to the creek with you, Tim. 
Cripps won’t let me leave the gates by myself ; 
but it is so very close here ! ” said Kitty, with 
a long-drawn sigh. 


SHADOWS AND WAKNINGS. 


147 


That it is,” agreed Tim ; and you’re get- 
ting sort of pale and peaked in it, sure. You 
ought to go down some place where it’s green 
and cool; and after this I’ll take you. Missy. 
Me and the dogs will take you every day; 
won’t we, buddies? ” — as Max and Ming came 
leaping to his call. I ain’t much account, I 
know; but, with these here dogs ready to 
jump at my word, I can take care of you as 
good as if I was the biggest, straightest man 
on this Kidge. When these buddies of mine 
show their teeth it don’t mean fun; does it, 
buddies?” — as Tim stroked and patted their 
shaggy heads rubbing against his knee. 

And, as even Cripps agreed to this view, 
the party was soon on its way to the creek, 
the nearest oasis in the black, gloomy desert 
around the Works. If it was hot and close 
behind Uncle Dave’s iron-spiked gates, the 
burning breath of forge and furnace and oven 
was a hundred times worse. Kitty fairly 
gasped as she hurried by the open doors, be- 
yond which she had never ventured, but whose 
fierce vistas she could see from her windows. 
And night and day those grimy, half-clad 
figures toiled there, amid the smoke and fiame, 


148 


SHADOWS AND WARNINGS. 


the roar of engines, the beat of steam ham- 
mers, the hiss of molten metal, at Uncle Dave^s 
word and will. 

As Tim and Kitty hurried by, a big, gaunt, 
black-bearded man staggered out of one of 
the doors, and reeled back helplessly against 
the wall, gasping for breath. 

Oh, he^s ill ! Call some one to help him, 
Tim,” said Kitty, in dismay. 

“No need. Missy. He’ll be all right in a 
moment,” answered the more experienced Tim. 
“ Just got a whiff or two of gas. It often 
catches them like that.” 

And even while he spoke the man straight- 
ened his gaunt form, drew in two or three 
breaths of the open air, and turned back to 
his work. 

“ Oh, I don’t see how they can stand it ! ” 
said Kitty, pitifully. 

“ They have to,” replied Tim, grimly. 

“ I’d like to give them one grand holiday,” 
Kitty went on, her eyes kindling, — “ to turn 
them out in the green fields and woods, where 
the birds are singing and the fiowers are 
growing, and let them have all sorts of nice 
things to eat and drink, and everything good, 


SHADOWS AND WARNINGS. 


149 


and be bappy if only for one day. If Uncle 
Dave were like my papa, I could do it; I^d 
have the biggest picnic on this mountain you 
ever saw. But I can^t do anything with Uncle 
Dave,^^ Kitty concluded sadly. I don’t 
think he likes me a bit.” 

He don’t like nobody,” replied Tim, whose 
education had not yet reached grammar ; 

and there ain’t nobody likes him. Most ways 
they hate him like poison, specially since Buck 
Benson’s been going round giving it out how 
he’s standing up against the other bosses that 
wants to give shorter hours and more pay. 
Buck was down town. I heard all about it, 
and he’s giving it out all around. And the 
Dagos has caught on, and they are b’iling mad, 
sure.” 

The speakers had reached the green ledge 
at the foot of the Falls, and, seated on the 
banks, were listening to the musical voice 
of the waters; while the buddies splashed de- 
lightedly in the little creek below. The rosy 
glow of the sunset fell softly upon Kitty ; the 
spray of the waterfall cooled the hot July 
air ; she leaned back against the moss-carpeted 
rock with a half restful, half weary little sigh. 


150 SHADOWS AND WARNINGS. 


O Tim, there just seem madness and hate 
and spite all around us! Mother Paula said 
that Love is like the sun — sure to come out 
after the blackest storm and the darkest 
night. But I don’t see how it can ever come 
out here.” 

And Tim, being as yet unequal to metaphor, 
did not see either, so long as the boss burned 
the soft coal that made such darned black 
smoke.” 

Then, the dogs having had their swim, the 
whole party turned back to the Ridge, whose 
black banners darkened the sunset sky. As 
they neared Uncle Dave’s spiked gates, a 
small, bare-legged boy dashed suddenly out 
of the gathering shadows, where he had evi- 
dently been waiting; and, pressing a pack- 
age into Kitty’s hand, vanished as quickly as 
he had appeared. It was the little pearl 
rosary she had given to Anita, wrapped in 
a bit of paper, on which were scrawled the 
words : 

Signorina, go back to Markham’s. Go 
back in the good God’s name ! ” 


CHAPTER XIII. 


THE BURST OF THE STORM. 

Go back to Markham’s.’^ Kitty read and 
reread the strange scrawl with puzzled eyes. 
“ It must be from Anita, the dead baby’s 
mother, because she sent me back my rosary. 
I wonder what it means? ” 

Don’t know,” answered Tim, whose wits, 
as we have seen, were not of the brightest. 

Mebbe they’re going to have another picnic 
and won’t come after you for fear of the boss.” 

Oh, no, it can’t be that, — ^it can’t be 
that ! ” said Kitty. Anita would not know 
anything about that. And it says ‘ in the 
good God’s name.’ O Tim” (and the young 
face blanched), maybe something dreadful 
is going to happen here, and Anita knows and 
wants me to get away ! She is Buck Benson’s 
wife, you know.” 

Bhe isf^^ exclaimed Tim, staring. I 
heard he had married a Dago girl. Don’t you 
151 


153 THE BURST OF THE STORM. 

meddle with them, Missy,’’ the hoy continued 
excitedly, — don’t you meddle with that 
crowd. Buck Benson’s wife ! Land, he’d 
knife her, and you too, as quick as he’d eat.” 

Kitty stood by the spiked gate, white and 
breathless with fear. 

‘‘ It’s a warning, Tim, — it’s a warning, I 
know ; and I ought to tell Uncle Dave. But ” 
(Kitty thought of the Markhams, the rosary, 
the baby’s baptism, and all her various rela- 
tions with hated people and things), “it will 
make him angrier than ever with me, I know.” 

“If you go nigh him now with any story 
about Buck Benson, he’ll surely bust out- 
right,” sagely commented Tim. 

“ O Tim,” faltered his little teacher, “ but 
I must! If anything dreadful is going to hap- 
pen here. Uncle Dave ought to know, so that 
he can watch out and take care of himself. 
He ought to know, and I must tell him. 
There he is on the porch now.” 

And, without waiting for her resolution to 
weaken, Kitty sped through the gate and up 
the black cinder path, where, with his hands 
thrust deep in his pockets. Uncle Dave was 
slowly pacing the side porch, — a grim, lonely 


THE BURST OF THE STORM. 153 


forbidding figure in the gathering shadows. 
He had no look or word for the white-robed 
little girl who came, breathless with haste and 
fear, to his side; he seldom had word or look 
for Niece Katherine now. 

Uncle Dave,” the girl began tremulously, 

I have to tell you something. A boy just 
put this paper in my hand there at the gate. 
I^m — I’m afraid it is a warning. Uncle Dave.” 

A warning ! ” the grizzled brows were 
turned upon her with their old fierce frown. 

Of what?” 

I — I don’t know. Uncle Dave.” 

‘‘What do you mean, then?” he asked, 
catching the paper that she held out to him, 
and scanning it in the fast fading light. 
“ Markhams I Markhams I Are you holding 
to those people yet, eh, — holding to them in 
spite of me, girl? ” 

“ No, Uncle Dave ; I have not been near them 
since the picnic. But — but ” ( Kitty felt that 
nothing but the entire story would explain 
matters to Uncle Dave) “that day we were 
caught in the storm we went into an old house 
on the mountain, and Anita was there and 
her baby — her poor dying baby,— and I — I 


154 THE BUEST OF THE STORM. 


baptized it, so that it could go to heaven. 
And I think Anita remembered it all, and she 
sent me that piece of paper with my pearl 
rosary that I had given her. And, Uncle 
Dave, I^m afraid it means that something 
dreadful is going to happen here; for she is 
Buck Benson^s wife.^’ 

“ Buck Benson^s wife ! ’’ echoed Uncle Dave, 
and he thundered out an oath that made 
Kitty’s soul shiver. Buck Benson ! Do you 
mean to tell me that you have been praying, 
singing, baptizing, doing I know not what 
Romish mummery with them? Buck Ben- 
son’s crowd, — scoundrels, villains, cutthroats 
that they are ! It is well for you that you are 
a girl!” and Uncle Dave’s hoarse voice shook 
with passion. ‘‘ If you were a boy, I believe 
I’d horsewhip you within an inch of your 
life. But, girl as you are. I’ll hold you, — I’ll 
rule you, as you will find. Niece Katherine. 
I’ll get this Popish poison out of your blood. 
I find you can’t be left free even here, — here 
under my very eyes. Next week — this very 
next week — you go off to school, — a school of 
my own choosing, where my orders will be 
obeyed.” 


THE BUEST OP THE STOEM. 155 

Uncle Dave, Uncle Dave, you don^t under- 
stand ! ’’ cried Kitty, desperately. “ You 
never understand me. Uncle Dave. I only 
want to save you from any harm or hurt or 
danger ’’ 

^^None of your cant!’’ interrupted the old 
man, stamping his foot fiercely. No more 
of your soft nun’s cant. You’ve been taught 
lies, deceit, trickery from your cradle, and I 
ought to look for nothing else. But I’ll get 
it out of you.” 

Land ! ” murmured Cripps, as Uncle 
Dave stalked away in the twilight, and Kitty, 
dazed and trembling, stumbled into the kitchen 
and almost fell into that sympathetic 
listener’s arms. “ Why did you ever go nigh 
him with a story like that, child? Don’t you 
know he’s as savage as a bear now? Neither 
heaven nor earth, much less a soft-voiced 
little creature like you, can change him.” 

O Cripps, Cripps ! ” murmured Kitty, 
clinging to that gaunt, grim friend piteously, 
too hurt, too bruised for sobs or tears. Uncle 
Dave is so hard, Cripps ! ” 

^^Hard?” said Cripps, fiercely. ^^That 
ain’t no name for him, child. He’s iron and 


166 THE BURST OF THE STORM. 


steel and rock all clamped together, and only 
the Lord’s own thunderbolt could reach his 
flinty old heart. You can’t do nothing, child ; 
so don’t worry. The storm’s rising on this 
Ridge, as every one knows ; and David Dillon’s 
got to face it as best he can. Sit down there 
on that chair and let me get you some supper ; 
for, thank Heaven, he’s had his, and gone off 
back to the Works. And if you want to see 
something lucky and pretty, look at that 
flower of yours in the window. I’ve been a 
watering and a nursing it on the sly, seeing 
how cut up you were about having it broken ; 
and it has grown, sure.” 

“ O Cripps, indeed it has ! ” exclaimed 
Kitty, turning to the window where the 

Queen’s Promise ” was shooting up into 
new and vigorous life. It’s as big as it was 
before the storm.” 

« Bigger ! ” declared Cripps, triumphantly. 

You see it didn’t have to waste no time strik- 
ing roots. They wasn’t hurt; and this here 
black earth, once it’s stirred up, grows things 
fine. Shouldn’t wonder if it bloomed later 
on. Land, but ’twould be curious to see roses 
blooming on this Ridge ! And I ’most forgot ” 


THE BUEST OF THE STOEM. 157 


(Cripps paused in the midst of her prepara- 
tion for Kitty’s supper, and drew an envelope 
out of her big pocket). Here’s a letter came 
in the last mail. They gave it to me when I 
was down at the post-office this evening buy- 
ing some thread.” 

A letter ! ” Kitty held it to the lamp 
and recognized the girlish handwriting with 
a thrill of delight. From Jeanie Riggs — dear, 
darling Jeanie, — who, though far away on 
her happy summer holiday, had not forgotten 
her old convent chum. 

Kitty tore open the pretty blue envelope 
with eager, trembling hand; and, regardless 
of the nice cream toast smoking on the table, 
scanned the dear familiar writing, with the 
whirligig ^’s and p’s that Sister Carmel could 
never induce Jeanie to abandon. The letter 
was dated from Sea Bluff,” or Sea Cliff,” 
or some sea place. Kitty did not stop to de- 
cipher the address, but read on: 

My dear, darling, precious Kitty: — 

I wanted to write to you before, but it 
seemed as if I never could get pen, ink and 
paper all together at the right time. It isn’t 


158 THE BURST OF THE STORM. 


like dear old St. Ursula^s, where we inarch into 
our own desks and find everything ready, even 
to ^ Rules for Correct Letter- Writing ’ pinned 
up before us on the wall. I’ve been on a rush, 
Kitty, for the last five weeks, and am having 
the grandest, most gorgeous time of my life, 
— boating, bathing, dancing, dining, — all sorts 
of fun from morning until night. It’s sea 
and country and woods and beach and every- 
thing lovely all combined, and lots of nice 
boys and girls ready for anything. And we 
have clam bakes and picnics and hay rides 
and fish fries, — and, oh, just everything you 
can think of, all the time! Kitty darling I 
wish you were here too. The other boys and 
girls are all very well, but there is no one like 
my own dear Kitty for me. I cried every night 
for one whole week after you left St. Ursula’s. 
The little, empty white bed beside me looked 
so ghastly that I almost felt as if you were 
dead. Sister Fidelis had to put me on the 
other side of the dormitory next to Nellie 
Marr. I never did like Nellie, as you know; 
and she hasn’t got over the May Queen busi- 
ness yet. 

O Kitty darling, if you were only here I’m 


THE BURST OF THE STORM. 159 

sure we would have such fun! Can’t you 
coax your uncle to let you come? Mamma 
has heard me talk so much about you that she 
loves you already, and would take as good 
care of you as if you were her own. 

But I suppose you are having a grand sum- 
mer yourself. The mountains are lovely, 
mamma says; and, with such a rich uncle to 
give you everything you want, and lots of 
new friends, maybe you’ve forgotten your old 
chum; though I don’t think you could, Kitty; 
for you’re not the forgetting kind. So write 
me soon and tell me everything, — everything: 
all the jolly times you are having, and the 
boys and girls you have met, and the lovely 
summer you are having. Write soon to your 
old chum, 

^‘Jeanie V. Riggs.^^ 

There was such a blur in Kitty’s eyes that 
for a moment she could not read the post- 
script, scrawled in wild haste across the 
closely written page : 

I’ve just had a letter from Mother Paula, 
and she has told me the grand, good news. 
I’ve only time to scrawl this line, to tell you 


160 THE BUEST OF THE STORM. 


how glad I am for you, darling, — how glad, 
glad, glad ! O my precious Kitty, how glad ! ’’ 

Then there was a big blot, where the letter 
had been folded again in reckless haste; and 
Kitty smiled a little even through her fast- 
falling tears. It was all so like Jeanie, with 
her sweet, hopeful, happy, topsy-turvy ways. 

Grand, good news, jolly friends, lovely 
times.” Ah, if Jeanie only knew! Kitty 
thought of her interview with Uncle Dave 
that evening. Her eyes turned toward poor, 
crooked Tim, who had just come into the 
dimly lit kitchen for his supper; to Cripps, 
who, with the hard, hickory-nut look back on 
her face, was pouring out his tea. Jolly 
friends, lovely times, grand, good news.” O 
Jeanie darling, if she could see, — if she could 
know ! 

Even the cream toast, which Cripps could 
make to a queen^s taste, seemed to choke 
Kitty to-night; and she soon made her way 
upstairs to her own big room, that, with its 
old-fashioned dulness, had a shadowy air of 
home that the rest of the grim, gloomy old 
house seemed to lack. She had put some of 
her premiums on the table, with the pretty 


THE BUKST OF THE STOEM. 161 


work-basket Jeanie had given her last Christ- 
mas, and had tacked one or two of her con- 
vent pictures on the wall. But it was the 
big painting over the chimney-place that 
seemed to warm and brighten the room with 
a glimpse of the mother-love that Kitty had 
never known; for Cripps had told her that 
the sweet lady smiling down on this loveless 
home was her own papa^s dear mother, and 
the boys at her knee were big Dave and 
“ little Jack/’ 

It used to hang in the dining-room, I’ve 
heard,” Cripps had explaimed ; but, after 
the break up with his brother, David Dillon 
had it put up here. He couldn’t bear to see 
it. It’s the only touch of lovingness in this 
whole dark house.” 

To-night Kitty put her lamp on the high 
mantel, and the sweet mother-face seemed to 
smile down on her with tender pity, that 
somehow soothed the poor little bruised and 
aching heart. Love, love! Ah, as Mother 
Paula said, somewhere behind the blackest 
clouds it was shining! Uncle Dave could not 
shut it out. Its memories, its teachings, were 
even in this dark, grim house. 


162 THE BUEST OF THE STOKM. 


So our little exile said her prayers, and, 
fairly worn out with her evening^s troubles, 
climbed into the high curtained bed; and, 
with her recovered rosary twined around her 
wrist, and Jeanie’s dear letter clasped in her 
hand beneath her pillow, Kitty soon drifted 
off into the Land of Dreams. The picture 
over the chimney grew real and living to 
her; and the sweet, smiling lady called her 
up to her side. Big Dave and Little Jack 
stretched out their chubby hands to clasp 
hers. You must love them both, Kitty, — 
love them both,^’ the dear mother-voice was 
saying softly, when, with a sudden crash, they 
all tumbled out of the picture together, and 
Kitty started up out of the ruins to find Cripps 
shaking her roughly and shrieking: 

Wake up, child, — wake up in the Lord’s 
name, and get out of this quick! The whole 
Ridge is ablaze ! ” 


CHAPTER XIV. 


KITTY FINDS UNCLE DAVE. 

Not realizing at first what had happened, 
Kitty stared aronnd her, quite bewildered at 
the strange red glare that flashed through her 
windows, making the dark, heavy furniture 
stand out sharp and clear. Even the picture 
over the mantel was smiling down upon her in 
the fierce, lurid light. 

O Cripps, Cripps ! she cried, gazing 
wildly at the queer figure beside her, that, 
with flying hair and disordered dress, looked 
like the witch of some midnight dream. 

What is it, Cripps? 

“ The judgment, child, — the judgment ! ” re- 
plied the old woman, excitedly. Come quick ! 
Put on your clothes and let us fly, child. It^s 
the judgment that has been hanging over 
David Dillon this many a day. The men have 
broke loose and fired the Works. They won’t 
163 


164 KITTY FINDS UNCLE DAVE. 


leave a stick or stone of David Dillon^s stand- 
ing on the Eidge, — do you hear that? ” 

Ay, Kitty heard. Her heart beat wildly, 
and an icy chill seemed to freeze every drop 
of her blood ; for through the fiery glare there 
came a roar like that of some mad, many- 
tongued monster goaded with fury, and 
athirst for blood. 

“ Oh, let us run quick, — quick ! ’’ cried 
Kitty, flinging on her clothes in desperate 
haste. “ Where are Tim and Uncle Dave? ’’ 

Tim is downstairs. Your uncle — don^t 
ask me where he is, child. He hasn’t been 
home to-night.” 

0 Cripps ! ” gasped Kitty. Surely he 
isn’t out there? 

1 don’t know, child, — I don’t know. 
Didn’t you warn him yourself last night? 
Didn’t everybody warn him that things 
couldn’t go on as they were? Them he had his 
iron heel on so long have turned. Oh, the Lord 
have mercy on us, just hear them ! ” And 
again the roar, wild and hoarse as that of 
maddened beasts, was repeated. 

Lord have mercy on us, just hear it ! 
Come, child, — come ! ” And Cripps caught 


KITTY FINDS UNCLE DAVE. 165 


Kitty’s icy hand. Tim is loosening the 
dogs. We have time to get off to the hills be- 
fore they fire us here. Come on ! ” 

And the speaker hurried Kitty on through 
the darkened halls and down the stairways, 
where the red glare did not reach, until they 
stumbled out on the side porch, where Tim 
stood, holding his two buddies, that were tug- 
ging in terror at their iron chain. 

Down, you fools, — down ! Ain’t I going 
to take you out of it? Down! We’re all off 
to the hills, if you’ll go easy and not pull so. 
Come, mam ! Come Missy ! ” 

They all hurried out into the cinder path, 
where the ragged cedars flung black shadows 
in the fiery light. But the dogs burst into a 
piteous howl and pulled back on their chains 
as Tim would have dragged them on. 

Come on, you brutes, — come on, I say ! 
You old dumb idiots, come on ! ” cried Tim, 
fiercely. Oh ! ” And then he himself re- 
coiled. Mercy, what is this?” For some- 
thing lay limp and black in the shadow of the 
cedars at his very feet. 

« It^s — it’s the master ! ” gasped Cripps. 

It’s David Dillon, killed dead ! Oh, God 


166 KITTY FINDS UNCLE DAVE. 


have mercy on us ! Come on, child ! ” cried the 
woman, in wild terror. ‘‘We can do him no 
good. He is dead, dead ! ” 

But, numb with horror as she was, Kitty’s 
ear, quickened perhaps by some blessed touch, 
had caught a faint sound. 

“ Uncle Dave ! — Uncle Dave ! ” she cried. 
“ Cripps, he isn’t dead ! I heard him moan, 
— I am sure I did.” 

“ You didn’t,— you couldn’t, child; or if you 
did it was the death-groan. Come on, I say! 
He’s past your help.” 

“ O Cripps, no ! Listen, listen ! ” said the 
little girl, excitedly. 

“ Water! ” came in a faint whisper to their 
bending ears. “ For God’s sake, — water — 
water ! ” 

“ O Cripps, don’t you hear? He’s begging 
for water. Uncle Dave, — poor Uncle Dave! 
O Cripps, we can’t leave him like this ! ” fal- 
tered Kitty, brokenly. 

“We can and we must, child ! ” was the 
fierce answer. “ I’ve got to live for my boy 
here, — to care for my poor, crooked, helpless 
boy. I’ve got to live for Tim. Come on, 
girl ! ” 


KITTY FINDS UNCLE DAVE. 167 


Water came the hoarse whisper again. 
^ O God, some water ! ” 

Uncle Dave, yes, ITl get it, — ITl get it ! 
cried Kitty ; and, breaking away from Cripps^ 
grasp, she sped back into the house, groping 
her way she scarce knew how to the water 
cooler that stood by the dining-room door; 
then she came hurrying out with a glass of ice 
water. 

Lift his head, Cripps,’’ said Kitty to the 
woman who stood quietly in the shadows. 
“ Oh, please lift poor Uncle Dave’s head while 
I hold the water to his lips. I can’t do both.” 

And as Cripps in grim silence obeyed, Kitty 
held the cooling draught to the fierce, grizzly- 
bearded lips that had never spoken a loving, 
tender word to her in all their lonely days to- 
gether. But no thought of this came to little 
Kitty now ; her heart was too full of unselfish 
pity and compassion. All the sweet, holy in- 
fluences long nurtured in her convent home 
seemed to bloom out in this hour of supreme 
need into the heavenly charity that is Love’s 
perfect flower. 

Poor Uncle Dave ! Oh, I can’t leave him, 
Cripps! I just canH leave him here alone to 


168 KITTY FINDS UNCLE DAVE. 


die! I don’t expect you and Tim to stay, be- 
cause he isn’t your uncle, — your dear father’s 
brother, Cripps. But I — I must! O Cripps, 
don’t you think we could move him a little bit 
farther under the trees? It’s softer in there. 
And would you stay here while I run in the 
house and get a pillow for his head? ” 

Do you mean to say that you’re ready, a 
bit of a child like you, to stay with that old 
flinty-hearted sinner — alone? said Cripps, 
angrily. 

I must,” answered Kitty, with a little 
shiver ; for she was only thirteen. “ He is 
dying, — poor Uncle Dave is dying, Cripps ! ” 
Let him die, then, you little goose ! It 
won’t hurt you. Don’t you know you’ll get 
everything he has?” said Cripps, fiercely. 

Are you going to stay here and let Tim and 
me leave you? ” 

“ No, she ain’t.” It was Tim, who had been 
listening stolidly to the conversation, who 
spoke out now. She ain’t, mam, because — 
because I ain’t going to leave her! If Missy 
stays, the dogs and I stay too ; don’t we, bud- 
dies? We stand by Missy just like she stands 
by them stories that she tells. You don’t know 


KITTY FINDS UNCLE DAVE. 169 


about the catechism stories, mam, but Missy 
and I do; so you can cut off across the hills, 
but the buddies and I will stay here. And 
you^d better cut off quick,^’ said Tim, with 
unexpected wisdom ; for iCs time somebody 
called for help and fire-engines sure.’’ 

“ O Cripps, yes, go, — go ! ” cried Kitty, 
catching at this faint gleam of hope. Go 
and send some one to help poor Uncle Dave.” 

Mercy, I can’t, — I can’t leave you ! ” re- 
plied Cripps, desperately ; though — though 
I reckon it’s best. There ain’t no train here 
now for six hours, and them wretches have cut 
the wires. I — some one will have to go.” 

Yes, quick, — quick, please, Cripps, — to 
Markham’s or Peyton’s, — anywhere ! ” pleaded 
Kitty. Oh, don’t wait, Cripps ! Go quick ! ” 
‘‘ If I could get you into the house ! ” said 
Cripps, despairingly. 

But you can’t ! ” said Kitty. We can’t 
move Uncle Dave, Cripps; it might kill him 
right off. O Cripps, go ! We’ll hide here under 
the cedars until you get back. We’ve got the 
dogs ; and the good angels will take care of us, 
I know, if you will only go, Cripps. Go ! ” 

“ The Lord have mercy on you, then, child, 


170 KITTY FINDS UNCLE DAVE. 


I will, — I will!’’ said Cripps, feeling that 
quick help was indeed the only hope ; and she 
sped away on feet that, winged with love and 
terror to-night, were light and swift as those 
of a sixteen-year-old girl. 

Tim, Tim,” said Kitty^ as the gaunt 
figure vanished in the shadows of the hill 
path, and all the horror of the situation 
seemed to fall upon the little group under 
the cedars, will it take her very long? ” 

“ Not if she kites along like that,” said Tim, 
with a grim chuckle. Don’t be frightened. 
Missy; I’m standing by you straight through, 
— the buddies here and I. And I guess them 
angels you talk about are around us too. 
And, ’twixt us all,” concluded Tim, we’ll 
take care of you sure.” 

But poor, crooked Tim cheered in a shak- 
ing voice. With mam vanishing in the dark- 
ness, it took a courage that would have done 
honor to a soldier at the front to keep him at 
Missy’s side. 

Never in the after years did he or Kitty for- 
get the terror of that vigil as, with the ragged 
cedars shadowing the red glare of the burn- 
ing Works, with the roar of the mob in their 


KITTY FINDS UNCLE DAVE. 171 


ears ; the hot breath and stifling smoke of the 
raging fire filling the summer midnight, they 
watched over the gasping, moaning old figure 
that had once been the stern master of this 
maddened scene, bending all things to his word 
and will. 

With his head pillowed on the cushions 
Kitty had brought from the house. Uncle Dave 
lay, his ghastly face upturned to the sky, 
aflame with the fire his own stubborn pride 
and greed had kindled. What he saw, what 
he heard, what he felt, the two young people 
could not know. Tim crouched in the shadow 
with his dogs; while Kitty bent closer to the 
helpless form, bathing Uncle Dave’s head, 
moistening his lips with ice water, and whis- 
pering trembling words of hope. 

“ Cripps has gone, — gone to get help. Uncle 
Dave. She will bring a doctor to you soon. 
And, O Uncle Dave, if you would just say a 
little prayer before you get any worse ! Uncle 
Dave, one little prayer ! ” 

Lord, Missy, he don’t know any prayers ! ” 
came Tim’s voice through the shadows. 

O Tim, don’t you think he does? ” faltered 
Kitty, as a new fear for the poor parting 


172 KITTY FINDS UNCLE DAVE. 


soul was added to the terror of the night. If 
he could only say one act of contrition ! ’’ 

Hirriy Missy ! There ain’t any one on this 
Kidge but you and me knows what contrition 
means at all.” 

Maybe if I said it for him he would under- 
stand.” And, bending close to Uncle Dave, she 
took the helpless hands in hers, and whispered 
into the sin-hardened ear the simple words 
of penitence that every Catholic child 
learns. 

Louder and fiercer came the wild clamor 
from below; but Kitty did not heed. New 
sounds and strange, commanding voices broke 
in upon the din. Tim made his way as fast as 
he could to the spiked gates, shouting wildly; 
but for the moment Kitty was far away from 
it all: she was kneeling at the Mercy Seat, 
offering for Uncle Dave the brief, touching, 
tender prayers framed for hours like these. 

The dogs were leaping and barking, and 
Tim was shrieking with excitement : 

A special, — a special ! A whole train 
loaded with soldiers and firemen ! Thank 
God I Folks, you just got here in time ! ” 

And then there rang out in the darkness a 


KITTY FINDS UNCLE DAVE. 173 


voice that would have pierced the very heights 
of heaven itself : 

My girl ! cried. Quick, boy, — quick. 
Tell me where is my girl, — my little girl? ” 


CHAPTER XV. 


LIFE AND LOVE. 

Yes, it was Papa ! papa ! ” who had 
broken through the gates of death to save his 
little girl. 

But, oh, surely there was no death in the 
stalwart man that, dashing aside the cedar 
branches, caught Kitty, speechless and almost 
breathless, to his heart. There was no death 
in the strong clasp of those arms, in the kisses 
showered upon brow and cheeks and lips; no 
death, only life and love, — life and love. 

Kitty ! ' Kitty ! My own precious child ! 
Thank God that I hold you safe in my arms ! 
My poor Mary’s little babe! Thank God, 
thank God ! ” And the strange tears of a 
strong man rained down upon Kitty’s up- 
turned face. 

O papa, — my own dear papa, hold me fast 
or I will die of joy ! Papa ” 

The trembling cry broke off in a gasp, a 
174 


LIFE AND LOVE. 


175 


sob, and all things seemed to fade away from 
Kitty, — all but the sweet sense of enfolding 
arms lifting her forever out of all fear and 
sorrow and pain. 

My God, she is dying ! cried her father. 

Doctor ! he called excitedly. 

Tut, tut ! It is only a faint,’^ was the 
cheery answer of the physician who had come 
to Uncle Dave’s aid. “ Take her to the house. 
Captain; one of our nurses will be up there. 
The shock has been too much for the poor 
little girl, that is all. I’ll look out for your 
brother.” 

Do all you can, in God’s name,” said the 
Captain, hoarsely. I must take care of Kitty 
now.” 

And under that dear, tender care, Kitty 
wakened into dreamy consciousness again. 
Some one was pouring rich, warm wine be- 
tween her lips ; all around her were light, life, 
kind faces, friendly voices. But all lesser 
things were lost in the supreme, bewildering 
bliss. She was in papa’s arms, pillowed in 
his heart : the dear voice she had never hoped 
to hear again was soothing, cheering. 

Kitty — my own dear Kitty ! — it is all over, 


176 


LIFE AM) LOVE. 


dear, — all the danger, all the fear. You are 
safe, my little girl, — safe in my arms. I am 
here to take care of you again ; to love you, to 
live for you.’^ 

O papa, papa ! ’’ Kitty whispered. Are 
we dead and — and in heaven, papa?’’ 

^^Dead? Not a bit of it!” answered papa, 
in a cheery voice that had a little break in it ; 

though, as for heaven, we are about as near 
to it as we can ever get on these lower shores. 
Didn’t you know I was coming to you, Kitty? 
Didn’t you get my telegrams or letters I sent 
to the convent? Mother Paula told me, when 
I saw her yesterday, that she had enclosed 
them to you here.” 

O papa, I didn’t know ! I never got 
them ! ” murmured Kitty ; little guessing how 
Uncle Dave had consigned all the St. Ursula 
correspondence, unread, to the waste-paper 
basket. 

And then, still safe in those dear, strong 
arms, Kitty heard the wonderful Robinson 
Crusoe story papa had to tell her : how he and 
old black Eph, who would not leave him, had 
stuck, like the brave seamen they were, to the 
sinking ship when all the rest had taken to 


LIFE AND LOVE. 


177 


the boats; how they had managed, somehow, 
to keep afloat and reach a little island in the 
Pacific, where they had been stranded for long 
months, until a passenger ship had seen their 
signals and taken them off; how, the ship 
being bound for China, he had been obliged to 
circumnavigate the world to get back to his 
little girl; how he had cabled his safety to 
Mother Paula as soon as he could strike a 
live wire, and he had written from every port ; 
and, finally, how, after hearing at St. Ursula’s 
where she was, he had been making his way to 
her last evening, but had missed the late 
train and was waiting at W — for the next 
train, when he heard of the outbreak at the 
Kidge. 

O papa, how did you hear? ” asked Kitty, 
in blissful wonder. How did you hear in 
time? For the wires were cut, and poor 
Cripps couldn’t have got a message to you 
so soon. Oh, it must have been the angels 
who warned you, papa.” 

^‘The angels!” repeated papa, and again 
the little break came into the hearty voice as 
he drew Kitty closer to him. “ It looks very 
much as if they did lend a hand, little girl. 


178 


LIFE AND LOVE. 


It was a good priest, Father Davis, who sent 
in the alarm. It seems he was holding a mis- 
sion up here, and was riding across the moun- 
tain to another station when an Italian 
woman flung herself in his path and began to 
jabber out a wild warning in her own tongue, 
which fortunately he could understand. He 
must save the ‘ little signorina, who had bap- 
tized her baby so it could go to the good God.^ 
And then came the whole story of the outbreak 
on the Ridge, — my poor brother's attempted 
murder, your danger. She had tried to warn 
you before, she said; but she could not write 
English, and perhaps you did not under- 
stand.” 

Anita ! — O poor Anita ! ” faltered Kitty. 

Father Davis lost no time in reaching 
the nearest telegraph station. When the news 
reached W — where I was fuming at a six- 
hours’ wait, there was a wild sailor man to 
stir things up as you can guess. The land- 
lubbers began to talk about official orders; 
but I gave them salt-water talk that made 
them hustle ; and I had that ‘ special ’ loaded 
for a flght and out on its way like a South 
Sea hurricane before they could get their 


LIFE AND LOVE. 


179 


breath. My, the way we ripped across the 
mountains ! I stood by the engineer, and told 
him I’d double his year’s salary if he got us 
here in time. We slackened only once at a 
little place about twenty miles from here, 
where we took up Father Davis, who begged 
us in his dispatch to give him a chance to 
quiet the men. And he did it, sure ! The first 
word from him in their own lingo was worth 
a volley of musketry, especially as we had the 
muskets to back him. There are two com- 
panies of W — militia holding the Ridge, and 
hard at work putting out the fires ; so all dan- 
ger is past. Here comes Father Davis now.” 

And Kitty lifted her eyes in joyful recog- 
nition of the tall priestly form that entered 
the room. 

“What news from the front. Father?” 
asked Captain Dillon. 

“ Things are quieting down,” was the cheery 
answer. “ The soldiers have about forty men 
under arrest. Benson— the ringleader, I un- 
derstand, — and some half dozen others who 
resisted, have been wounded; the rest of the 
poor fellows are fighting the fires most obedi- 
ently. They are like children, these simple 


180 


LIFE AND LOVE. 


foreigners, — swift and unreasoning in pas- 
sion, and as swift and earnest in repentance. 
They had been stirred up into momentary 
frenzy, that has gone out like a spent fuse. 
Of course it is not for me to question your 
worldly wisdom and judgment,” added Father 
Davis, with his winning smile ; but I do not 
think you would regret proclaiming pardon 
and peace.” 

That is for my brother to decide, if he is 
able,” answered Captain Dillon. But I fear 
very much that he will push the law to its 
harshest limit in retribution for to-night’s 
work.” 

Ah, then we can only pity and pray for 
our poor sinners, — eh, little girl? ” said 
Father Davis gently, as he laid his hand for a 
moment in benediction on Kitty’s head, and 
turned away again to his “ poor sinners ” ; for 
the hands ” were clinging to the padre like 
frightened children, who felt that this friend 
alone could keep them from harm. 

And now, if my little girl can spare me, I 
must go to see about Uncle Dave,” said papa, 
as, with another warm hug and kiss, he left 
Kitty nestling among the big leather cushions 


LIFE AISTD LOVE. 


181 


of the couch, feeling as if she were still in a 
blissful dream, — a dream that, after the dark 
horror through which she had passed, seemed 
full of light, life, friendliness; for soon the 
Markham carriage rolled up in kindly haste 
to the spiked iron gates, with the Judge and 
his pretty, brown-eyed wife, forgetful of any 
unpleasantness, and full of anxious sympathy ; 
with Phil, in his soldier uniform, sorely dis- 
appointed at having missed the fight; and 
Cripps, who had managed to get over the hills 
and rocks to the “ Injun trail ” and give the 
alarm. 

And Kitty found it not the least comforting 
experience of this wonderful night to have 
dear Mrs. Markham “ mothering her as, save 
in very dim remembrance, she had never been 

mothered before. For even St. Ursula’s 
tenderness had its wise limitations ; and little 
girls were not coddled and kissed and cried 
over in the fond, foolish mother-way that Mrs. 
Markham coddled and kissed and cried over 
wide-eyed little Kitty to-night ; while between 
times she managed to have a warm bath made 
ready, a soothing draught concocted; and by 
various other methods that mothers know so 


182 


LIFE AND LOVE. 


well, Kitty’s quivering nerves and throbbing 
brain were quieted at last into happy, restful 
sleep. 

She will be all right now,” whispered the 
lady softly, as, with practised hand, she felt 
the little sleeper’s pulse. Poor, darling little 
girl, she has had enough to drive her into 
brain fever ! ” 

‘^Yes, she’s had enough to drive her into 
her grave,” grimly answered Cripps. “ What 
that child has had to put up with in this black 
hole of a house, without a glimmer of light or 
life or love, nobody but me and Tim knows. 
But — bless the Lord ! — it’s all over, and she’s 
back in the sunshine again.” 

In the sunshine indeed, as Kitty realized, 
with a glad leap of her heart, when she opened 
her eyes next morning to find papa smiling 
down upon her, and the whole Ridge radiant 
with golden light. The smoke clouds had all 
swept away; the fires of forge and furnace 
for the first time were quenched; the pant 
of engine and clang of steam-hammer were 
stilled. Soldiers were keeping order in the 
smouldering ruins of the great Dillon Works ; 
the fierce giant who had held the Ridge 


LIFE AM) LOVE. 


183 


seemed laid low; and, in the new sunlight 
streaming from the unclouded sky, the sweet 
mother-face over Kitty’s mantel smiled ten- 
derly down upon the two boys at her knee. 

Little Jack ” was safe again. But big 
Dave? ” 

“ Uncle Dave? ” whispered Kitty, a little 
tremor in her voice. O papa, how is poor 
Uncle Dave? ” 

Holding his own,” answered papa. He 
may pull through yet, the doctors say ; but he’s 
in the breakers, little girl, — poor old Dave is 
in the breakers, and pretty close to the other 
shore. I have been up with him all night, his 
hand gripped in mine just as we used to grip 
hands long ago. And he is asking for you.” 

For met Oh, you must be mistaken ! ” ex- 
claimed Kitty, thinking of the gloomy silence 
of these long, long weeks. Uncle Dave can’t 
be asking for me ! ” 

For you, — for ^ Niece Katherine,’ as he 
calls you. It was some time before I realized 
that that was his name for you. So jump up 
and dress, Kitty dear, and go to Uncle Dave. 
If he were well and strong” (and papa’s face 
hardened for a moment), I’d take you away 


184 


LIFE AISTD LOVE. 


where he would never lay eyes on you again. 
But as it is, Kitty, — as it is, we must forgive 
and forget, — forgive and forget.’’ 

And, with the words, papa bent down and 
imprinted a lingering kiss upon the little 
girl’s forehead, — a kiss that put a seal on the 
sad, bitter past forever. 

When, a little while later, they entered the 
darkened room where, swathed in bandages, 
grim and gray and ghastly. Uncle Dave was 
making his fight for life, there was only one 
feeling in their hearts, — pity for this stern, 
hard old man who had shut out all love and 
tenderness from his life, as the smoke of his 
chimneys had shut out God’s sunshine. Even 
though her own dear papa, tender and loving, 
was at her side, Kitty trembled as she drew 
near the bed, and the old shadow seemed to 
fall across the gladness of her sunshine, — the 
shadow that would have blighted any other 
flower less sweet and strong and deep-rooted 
than Mother Paula’s convent rose. 

But the eyes that once gleamed so fiercely 
under their shaggy brows were now lifted 
with a new look to Kitty’s face. 

Niece Katherine,” said Uncle Dave, 


LIFE AND LOVE. 


185 


stretching out a weak hand to her,— ‘Mittle 
Niece Katherine (How strangely softened 
was the harsh, stern tone ! ) I want to tell 
you that I heard all last night, — that I heard 
all. I know how you stood by me, — how you 
refused to leave the old man who had been so 
hard to you; how you faced fear and danger 
and death, little Niece Katherine, for my sake. 
I heard all, even the prayers you whispered 
in my ears. And good prayers they were, 
Niece Katherine. TheyVe been running in 
my head all night. — I have been a fool. Jack ” 
(and Uncle Dave lifted his wistful gaze to his 
brother), — ^^a dull, blind, hard-headed, old 
fool ! 

‘^And I a fierce, quick, hot-headed one,” 
answered Captain Dillon. “ So there was a 
pair of us, Dave; but, as my own little girPs 
prayer says, weVe sorry for our past and 
ready to amend. So it^s peace and pardon all 
around, — isn’t it, Kitty?” 

O papa, — Uncle Dave, yes indeed ! ” said 
Kitty, eagerly. And the poor people at the 
Works are sorry, too. Father Davis says so. 
They were just quick and hot-headed. Of 
course the real bad men who led them on must 


186 


LIFE AKD LOVE. 


be punished; but for the rest let it be peace 
and pardon all around, please, — please. Uncle 
Dave ! 

For a moment the grim face, swathed in 
bandages, darkened with the fierce old frown, 
then it cleared again. 

You^re asking more than you think. Niece 
Katherine, — more than you think. I^ve been 
lying here planning how I would get even 
with these scoundrels; but, instead, I’ll even 
up with you for last night, — for all the days 
and nights we’ve been together. So you can 
give it out, whether I live or die: peace and 
pardon all around, — peace and pardon to 
master and man, for little Niece Katherine’s 
sake; peace and pardon!” 


CHAPTER XVI. 


A HAPPY DAY. 

Nearly a year had passed since that blessed 
message of peace and pardon had echoed like 
strange music over Blackstone Ridge, — music 
which Father Davis had voiced into words of 
counsel and warning that reached every lis- 
tener’s heart. As soon as it was possible, 
papa ” had taken Kitty away for a bright, 
brief holiday with Jeanie Riggs and her gay 
crowd; and then she went back to St. Ursula’s 
for a school year that seemed to her, in con- 
trast with the past, the happiest, brightest 
she had ever known. And now it was summer 
time again. Commencement ” was over and 
Kitty was speeding across the mountains with 
a glad holiday party that filled the parlor car 
with chatter and laughter and girlish glee. 

There was Jeanie, who was to spend part 
of her vacation with Kitty; Loulie and Carrie 
Vane, who were travelling to their grand- 
187 


188 


A HAPPY DAY. 


mother^s mountain home, under Captain 
Dillon^s care; Phil and Letty Markham, who 
had been obliged to wait the closing of school 
this year instead of flitting before time with 
the younger children to the Lodge.’’ And, 
with papa in command, it was a jolly crowd 
indeed that feasted and frolicked as they 
sped across the sunlit heights on their holiday 
way. 

There was one faint shadow to dim Kitty’s 
joy: they were to stop for two days at Black- 
stone Ridge, Captain Dillon having important 
business with his brother. With her memories 
of gloom and horror of the place — memories 
that still haunted her in troubled dreams, — 
Kitty dreaded the visit. She had written 
dutifully and affectionately to Uncle Dave, 
and received several stiff replies, assuring 

Niece Katherine ” of his slow but sure 
recovery, and informing her that the Works 
were in operation again and all things satis- 
factory. 

And Kitty would have been glad to drop 
all acquaintance with the Works at this 
^^satisfactory” point, and never see Black- 
stone Ridge again. But papa wished to stop 


A HAPPY DAY. 


189 


on their way to the mountain springs where 
they were to spend the happy summer, and 
Kitty was too loving and unselfish to speak of 
the creepy horror that still chilled her young 
heart when she thought of Uncle Dave’s home. 
No doubt papa, who could read his little girPs 
face, saw the light of relief that came over it 
when Phil and Letty begged that all the young 
people should stop for a night with them. 

We will all drive over to the Ridge in the 
morning,” said Phil. 

« Very well,” Captain Dillon answered, 
with a smile. Make it a morning visit, then ; 
night is a little gloomy even yet at Blackstone 
Ridge. I’ll go on ahead this evening and stir 
up Uncle Dave.” 

And so it happened that, after a hilarious 
visit to the Lodge, where the summer jollifi- 
cations were in full swing, Kitty found her- 
self again rattling along the Injun trail” 
in Phil’s pony cart, through the brightness of 
the summer morning, on her second visit to 
Blackstone Ridge. Jeanie and the rest of the 
party were to join them a little later on. It 
was a gay drive; still, laugh and chatter as 
she might, something of the old chill stole back 


190 


A HAPPY DAY. 


upon Kitty as she neared the turn of the 
road that led to Uncle Dave^s grim do- 
main. 

But, as she reached it, she gave a startled 
little cry. Rows of whitewashed cottages 
stood on either side of a smooth cement way, 
each cottage with its tiny patch of green be- 
fore the door; the new Works stretched airy, 
spacious, and well-built, across the Ridge; the 
old smoke banners were mere silvery mists 
against the clear blue sky. 

O Phil,’^ gasped Kitty, this can’t be 
Blackstone Ridge ! ” 

It’s nothing else,” replied Phil, who was 
doing his share of staring. Dad said your 
uncle had made some changes; but, my! I 
didn’t look for anything like this.” 

And, quite speechless with surprise, the 
newcomers drove on over roads in which the 
cinders and slag had been smoothed under 
concrete, where ashes and rubbish had been 
cleaned away, and the mountain breeze swept 
at its own sweet will; for the new Works had 
been constructed for light and air as well as 
fire and smoke. Broadening into a handsome 
carriage way, the road turned toward Uncle 


A HAPPY BAY. 


191 


Dave’s house. The iron-spiked gates were 
down; the new gates swung lightly between 
stone pillars, bearing urns filled with growing 
vines; the black cinder path was a gravelled 
carriage sweep, circling a grassy lawn. 
Kitty felt she must surely be asleep and dream- 
ing, until there came a glad shouting and 
barking from the old cedars ; and crooked Tim 
stumbled out, with his buddies leaping at his 
heels. 

Boss, Captain, they’re come ! She is come, 
mam, — little Missy is here again ! ” 

And Cripps, her hickory-nut face now 
stretched into a smile, came hurrying from 
the back porch. 

Papa flung open the door; Uncle Dave, 
paler and grayer and thinner than of yore, 
stood on the threshold with his hand out- 
stretched to her. And so, in a glad, bewilder- 
ing tumult of welcome, Kitty was at the grim 
old home again. 

Even in the house everything was different. * 
Sunlight streamed through the once dark 
windows; the sweet-faced mother, with her 
two boys, again smiled over the dining-room 
mantel; old silver, put away for years as 


192 


A HAPPY DAY. 


nonsense,” shone on sideboard and buffets 
and there was a new set of china wreathed in 
rosebuds. 

O Cripps ! ” exclaimed Kitty, when she 
had time to take breath and give Cripps a 
good hug in the kitchen, “everything is so 
changed ! ” 

“ Changed ! ” chuckled Cripps, grimly. 
“ Land, I should say so, child ! Dave Dillon 
ain’t been the same man since that night he 
lay under the cedars. And it’s you that 
did it.” 

exclaimed Kitty, — “7, Cripps!” 
child, and nobody else,” repeated 
Cripps. “ The way you stuck by him, with me 
begging and praying for you to go off; the 
way you nursed and watched him and prayed 
over him, with death and fire and danger all 
around you! It got to him, child, — ^it struck 
right down into his flinty old heart and 
touched some spring that has been running 
ever since. And the way he’s taken to my 
Tim,” added Cripps, her face softening into a 
mother-smile> — “ the way he’s taken to that 
poor, crooked boy is just amazing. He made 
Tim tell him all about the book-learning you 


A HAPPY DAY. 


193 


gave him last summer, and the catechism 
stories; and he said, though you were the 
best teacher he knew, he would try and keep 
the lessons up. And so Tim’s going next 
year to some Brothers’ school, where they’ll 
look after him. Father Davis says, and make 
him as good a man as if he was six feet tall. 
And your uncle is going to pay for him just 
as if he were his own born son.” 

Yes,” said Tim, who, while waiting for 
his dinner, had followed her into the kitchen, 
and was feasting his eyes on his restored little 
Missy, we’ve all been trying to ^ mend our 
lives ’ since you left. Boss says that’s what 
you whispered in his ear when he was lying 
there ’most dead. He ain’t never forgot the 
words. ^ We’ll have to mend our lives, Tim,’ 
he says, ‘ before that little teacher of ours gets 
back.’ And Father Davis comes up now and 
preaches three times a year ; and, betwixt them 
and the new houses and the short shifts at the 
Works, the men are quiet as lambs. Buck 
Benson won’t trouble them any more; for 
that there shot he got from the soldiers last 
summer turned on his lungs, and he died. 
But I forgave him beforehand, as you said. 


194 


A HAPPY DAY. 


little Missy, — I forgave him good. I wrote 
it down with my own hand and sent it to the 
hospital, with six oranges and a jar of mam’s 
apple-sauce. And Anita has chirked up and 
got married to one of her own Dagos, that 
treats her all right. Yes, everybody up here 
has mended their lives,” concluded Tim, as 
he proceeded to attack the bacon and cabbage 
with which mam had filled his plate. “ They’ve 
mended their lives, sure.” 

“ Well,” said Uncle Dave, as Kitty returned 
to the porch, where he and papa were smoking 
their after-dinner cigars, ^‘you find things a 
little brighter than they were last summer. 
Niece Katherine? ” 

O Uncle Dave, yes ! ” answered Kitty, as 
she sank down on the step at his feet. ‘‘ Oh, I 
would never have believed Blackstone Kidge 
could be so nice ! ” 

Then perhaps you won’t mind giving us a 
day or two,” said Uncle Dave. Tim told 
me that you once said that you would like to 
give a picnic at the Kidge, — turn all hands 
loose for a holiday. We’ll do it to-mor- 
row.” 

O Uncle Dave ! ” exclaimed Kitty, wonder- 


A HAPPY DAY. 


195 


ing if she could believe her own ears. But the 
grim old face to which she lifted her eyes 
wore a smile that made it look almost like 
papa’s. 

To-morrow/’ repeated Uncle Dave. The 
holiday was promised three months ago; but 
the men agreed to wait for your coming, 
Niece Katherine. It will be the first holiday 
given at Blackstone Ridge, and it shall be 
given in your name.” 

And we’ll make it a rip-roarer to be re- 
membered forever; won’t we, Kitty?” said 
papa, jubilantly. 

And the holiday that followed was indeed 
one to be remembered forever at Blackstone 
Ridge. All night long there was the pleasant 
hum of preparation, and by morning busy 
hands had done their happy work in the 
fashion of the sunny lands across the sea. 
Flags and pennants fluttered from every avail- 
able point ; arches of pine and cedar and 
mountain-laurel spanned the road and gate- 
ways ; old holiday garbs had been brought out, 
and men and women were gay in jackets and 
sashes, kirtles and bodices unused for years; 
while all the brown-faced little children were 


196 


A HAPPY HAY. 


in white, wearing wreaths of wild flowers. 
The first morning train brought a Sicilian 
band, in pointed hats and red jackets ; and ten 
white-capped waiters in charge of a car load 
of refreshments, — huge freezers of ice cream, 
and crates of berries, and mounds of frosted 
cake, to say nothing of the solids which would 
appeal to the sturdier appetites. 

But before the rip-roaring fun ’’ which 
papa had promised began, there was a sweeter 
celebration. Standing at her uncle’s gate, 
with her father. Uncle Dave, the Markhams, 
Jeanie, Loulie, and Carrie, who had all come 
over from the Lodge, Kitty looked out on what 
seemed a very beautiful Old World picture. 
Forming in double lines, the little white-robed 
children leading the procession, the holiday 
makers came along the new-made roads from 
the silent Works, where the smoke wreaths 
curled far away in silvery mists against the 
summer sky. The Sicilian band marching be- 
hind, struck a familiar strain; and then, in 
full, rich chorus, rose the Ave Maria, swelling 
like a wave of blessed harmony over rock and 
ridge and height ; childish trebles, girlish 
contraltos, manly tenors, — all upbearing the 


A HAPPY DAY. 


197 


blessed chant. Kitty and Jeanie took up the 
well-known words that to them were house- 
hold music. Judge Markham, papa and 
Uncle Dave, even Cripps, fell into line as the 
procession marched on and on, under the 
fluttering flags and laurel arches, round the 
bend of the Kidge to the mountain paths, 
widened and cleared into a broad roadway, 
and leading to the grassy nook where the Falls 
leaped in rainbow spray from the rocks, — 
the green level where Kitty had taught, and 
Tim learned.’’ 

And there, there — Kitty felt it must all be 
a beautiful dream, — there, as if it had grown 
out of the rocks, stood a little stone chapel, 
just flnished, even to the gilded cross on the 
spire, and the sweet-toned bell swinging be- 
neath, — ay, even to Father Davis standing in 
his white robes at the open door. And as 
the procession passed in, still singing, papa 
paused and put his arm around his little 
daughter. 

Our gift, Kitty,” he said, — yours and 
mine; our thank-offering to the good God for 
all He has restored to us. Uncle Dave added 


198 


A HAPPY DAY. 


the spire and the bell that shall sound its call 

of love over the mountain ridge ’’ 

In your name, Niece Katherine,^’ added 
Uncle Dave, hastily, — in your name. YouVe 
taught me a deal I never tried to learn; and 
I thought if there was any way of keeping up 
that teaching of yours in this Kidge, I would 
go in for it.’’ 

O Uncle Dave,” murmured Kitty, realiz- 
ing all this blunt confession meant, — “ dear, 
dear Uncle Dave ! ” And, for the first time 
in her life, Kitty flung her arms about Uncle 
Dave’s neck and kissed his rough cheek. I 
do love you. Uncle Dave ! ” 

There, there ! ” said Uncle Dave, much 
abashed at this public demonstration. You 
haven’t seen the best of things, little Niece 
Katherine. Tim told me the story of the rose 
slip you brought to Blackstone Ridge, — the 
rose that folks say was once a thistle bush. 
He brought it here last spring and planted it 
out.” 

And just look at it. Missy ! ” cried Tim in 
triumph. Just look at it! See how it’s 
growed ! ” 

Kitty looked. Deep rooted in its sunny 


A HAPPY DAY. 


199 


shelter, sending, its new green shoots up in 
every direction, already wreathing the quaint, 
arched window of the little chapel, the 
Queen’s Promise ” stood white with fragrant 
bloom. 


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TOM PLAYFAIR: OR, MAKING A START. By Rev. F. J. Finn, S.J. 
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THE CAVE BY THE BEECH FORK. By Rev. H. S. Spalding, S.J. “This 
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LOYAL BLUE AND ROYAL SCARLET. By Marion A. Taggart. “Will 
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THE MYSTERIOUS DOORWAY. By Anna T. Sadlier. “A bright, spark- 
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OLD CHARLMONT’S SEED-BED. By Sara T. Smith. “A delightful story 
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HIS FIRST AND LAST APPEARANCE. By Rev. F. J. Finn, S.J. Pro- 
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popular with the girls as well as with the boys.” 

THE SHERIFF OF THE BEECH FORK. By Rev. H. S. Spalding, S.J. 
“From the outset the reader’s attention is captivated and never lags.” 

SAINT CUTHBERT’S. By Rev. J. E. Copus, S.J. “A truly inspiring tale, 
full of excitement.” 

THE TAMING OF POLLY. By Ella Loraine Dorsey. “Polly with her 
cool bead, her pure heart and stern Western sense of justice.” 

STRONG-ARM OF AVALON. By Mary T. Waggaman. “Takes hold of the 
interest and of the heart and never lets go.” 

JACK HILDRETH ON THE NILE. By C. May. “Courage, truth, honest 
dealing with friend and foe.” 

A KLONDIKE PICNIC. By Eleanor C. Donnelly. “Alive with the charm 
that belongs to childhood.” 

A COLLEGE BOY. By Anthony Yorke. “Healthy, full of life, full of 
incident.” 

THE GREAT CAPTAIN. By Katharine T. Hinkson. “Makes the most 
interesting and delightful reading.” 

THE YOUNG COLOR GUARD. By Mary G. Bonesteel. “The attractive- 
ness of the tale is enhanced by the realness that pervades it.” 

THE HALDEMAN CHILDREN. By Mary E, Mannix. “Full of people 
entertaining, refined, and witty.” 

PAULINE ARCHER. By Anna T. Sadlier. “Sure to captivate the hearts 
of all juvenile readers.” 

TPIE ARMORER OF SOLINGEN. By W. Herchenbach. “Cannot fail to 
inspire honest ambition.” 

THE INUNDATION. By Canon Schmid. “Sure to please the young 
readers for whom it is intended.” 

THE BLISSYLVANIA POST-OFFICE. By Marion A. Taggart. “Pleasing 
and captivating to young people.” 

DIMPLING’S SUCCESS. By Clara Mulholland. “Vivacious and natural 
and cannot fail to be a favorite.” 

BISTOURI. By A. Melandri. “How Bistouri traces out the plotters and 
foils them makes interesting reading.” • 

FRED’S LITTLE DAUGHTER. By Sara T. Smith. “The heroine wins her 
way into the heart of every one.” 

THE SEA-GULL’S ROCK. By J. Sandeau. “The intrepidity of the little 
hero will appeal to every boy.” 

JUVENILE ROUND TABLE. First Series. A collection of twenty stories 
by the foremost writers, with many full-page illustrations. 


3 


2 0 Copyrighted Stories for the Young 

By the Best Catholic Writers 
Sfkciaiv Nktc Priced, SlO.OO 
^^i.oo down, $1.00 a month 

Read explanation of our Circulating Library plan on preceding pages 


Juvenile Library C 

PERCY WYNN; OR, MAKING A BOY OF HIM. By Rev. F. J. Finn, S.J. 
“The most successful Catholic juvenile published.” 

THE RACE FOR COPPER ISLAND. By Rev. H. S. Spalding, S.J. 
“Father Spalding’s descriptions equal those of Cooper.” 

SHADOWS LIFTED. By Rev. J. E. Copus, S.J. “We know of no books 
more delightful and interesting.” 

HOW THEY WORKED THEIR WAY, AND OTHER STORIES. By 
Maurice F. Egan. “A choice collection of stories by one of the most 
popular writers.” 

WINNETOU, 'THE APACHE KNIGHT. By C. May. “Chapters of breatn- 
less interest.” 

MILLY AVELING. By Sara Trainer Smith. “The best story Sara Trainer 
Smith has ever written.” 

THE TRANSPLANTING OF TESSIE. By Mary T. Waggaman. “An ex- 
cellent girl’s story.” 

THE PLAYWATER PLOT. By Mary T. Waggaman. “How the plotters 
are captured and the boy rescued makes a very interesting story.” 

AN ADVENTURE WITH THE APACHES. By Gabriel Ferry. 

PANCHO AND PANCHITA. By Mary E. Mannix. “Full of color and 
warmth of life in old Mexico.” 

RECRUIT TOMMY COLLINS. By Mary G. Bonesteel. “Many a boyish 
heart will beat in envious admiration of little Tommy.” 

BY BRANSCOME RIVER. By Marion A. Taggart. “A creditable book in 
every way.” 

THE QUEEN’S PAGE. By Katharine Tynan Hinkson. “Will arouse the 
young to interest in historical matters and is a good story well told.” 

MARY TRACY’S FORTUNE. By Anna T. Sadlier. “Sprightly, interesting 
and well written.” 

BOB-O’LINK. By Mary T. Waggaman. “Every boy and girl will be de- 
lighted with Bob-o’Link.” 

THREE GIRLS AND ESPECIALLY ONE. By Marion A. Taggart. “There 
is an exquisite charm in the telling.” 

WRONGFULLY ACCUSED. By W. Herchenbach. “A simple tale, enter- 
tainingly told.” 

THE CANARY BIRD. By Canon Schmid. “The story is a fine one and 
will be enjoyed by boys and girls.” 

FIVE O’CLOCK STORIES. By S. H. C. J. “The children who are blessed 
with such stories have much to be thankful for.” 

JUVENILE ROUND TABLE. Second Series. A collection of twenty stories 
by the foremost writers, with many full-page illustrations. 


4 


20 Copyrighted Stories for the Young 

By the Best Catholic Writers 
SiPKOiA.!, Nhj'T Prick, $10.00 
$1.00 down, $1.00 a month 

Read explanation of our Circulating Library plan on preceding pages 


Juvenile Library D 

THE WITCH OF RIDINGDALE. By Rev. David Bearne, S.J. “Here is a 
story for boys that bids fair to equal any of Father Finn’s successes.” 

THE MYSTERY OF CLEVERLY. By George Barton. There is a peculiar 
charm about this novel that the discriminating reader will ascribe to the 
author’s own personality. 

HARMONY FLATS. By C. S. Whitmore. The characters in this story are 
all drawn true to life, and the incidents are exciting. 

WAYWARD WINIFRED. ^ By Anna T. Sadlier. A story for girls. Its 
youthful readers will enjoy the vivid description, lively conversations, and 
plenty of striking incidents, all winding up happily. 

TOM LOSELY : BOY. By Rev. J. E. Copus, S.J. Illustrated. The writer 
knows boys and boy nature, and small-boy nature too. 

MORE FIVE O’CLOCK STORIES. By S. H. C. J. “The children who are 
blessed with such stories have much to be thankful for.” 

JACK O’LANTERN. By Mary T. Waggaman. This book is alive with in- 
terest. It is full of life and incident. 

THE BERKLEYS. By Emma Howard Wight. A truly inspiring tale, full 
of excitement. There is not a dull page. 

LITTLE MISSY. By Mary T. Waggaman. A charming story for children 
which will be enjoyed by older folk as well. 

TOM’S LUCK-POT. By Mary T. Waggaman. Full of fun and charming 
incidents — a book that every boy should read. 

CHILDREN OF CUPA. By Mary E. Mannix. One of the most thoroughly 
unique and charming books that has found its way to the reviewing desk 
in many a day. 

FOR THE WHITE ROSE. By Katharine T. Hinkson. This book is some- 
thing more than a story; but, as a mere story, it is admirably well written. 

THE DOLLAR HUNT. From the French by E. G. Martin. Those who wish 
to get a fascinating tale should read this story. 

THE VIOLIN MAKER. From the original of Otto v. Schaching, by Sara 
Trainer Smith. There is much truth in this simple little story. 

“JACK.” By S. H. C. J. As loving and lovable a little fellow as there is in 
the world is “Jack,’*^ the “pickle,” the “ragamuffin,” the defender of per- 
secuted kittens and personal principles. 

A SUMMER AT WOODVILLE. By Anna T. Sadlier. This is a beautiful 
book, in full sympathy with and delicately expressive of the author’s 
creations. 

DADDY DAN. By Mary T. Waggaman. This is a rattling good story for 
boys. 

THE BELL FOUNDRY. By Otto v. Schaching. So interesting that the 
reader will find difficulty in tearing himself away. 

TOORALLADDY. By Julia C. Walsh. An exciting story of the varied 
fortunes of an orphan boy from abject poverty in a dismal cellar to success. 

JUVENILE ROUND TABLE. Third Series. A collection of twenty stories 
by the foremost writers. 


5 


Catholic Circulating Library terMont 

NOVELS 

12 Copy rig tited. Novels by tbe Best -A-utbors 

SBBCIaAb !Priob, S12.00 

You get the books at once, and have the use of them while making easy 

payments 

Read explanation of our Circulating Library plan on first page 


Library of Novels No. I 

THE RULER OF THE KINGDOM. By Grace Keon. “Will charm any 
reader.” 

KIND HEARTS AND CORONETS. By J. Harrison. “A real, true life 
history, tliD kind one could live through and never read it for romance.” 

IN THE DAYS OF KING HAL. By Marion A. Taggart. Illustrated. “A 
tale of the time of Henry V. of England, full of adventure and excite- 
ment.” 

HEARTS OF GOLD. By I. Edhor. “It is a tale that will leave its reader 
the better for knowing its heroine, her tenderness and her heart of gold.” 

THE HEIRESS OF CRONENSTEIN. By Countess Hahn-Hahn. “An ex- 
quisite story of life and love, told in touchingly simple words.” 

THE PILKINGTON HEIR. By Anna T. Sadlier. “Skill and strength are 
shown in this story. The plot is well constructed and the characters 
vividly differentiated.” 

THE OTHER MISS LISLE. A Catholic novel of South African life. By 
M. C. Martin. A powerful story by a writer of distinct ability. 

IDOLS; OR, THE SECRET OF THE RUE CHAUSSEE D’ANTIN. By 
Raoul de Navery. “The story is a remarkably clever one; it is well con- 
structed and evinces a master hand.” 

THE SOGGARTH AROON. By Rev. Joseph Guinan, C.C. A capital Irish 
story. 

THE VOCATION OF EDWARD CONWAY. By Maurice F. Egan. “This 
is a novel of modern American life. The scene is laid in a pleasant colony 
of cultivated people on the banks of the Hudson, not far from West Point.” 

A WOMAN OF FORTUNE. By Christian Reid. “That great American 
Catholic novel for which so much inquiry is made, a story true in its 
picture of Americans at home and abroad.” 

PASSING SHADOWS. By Anthony Yorke. “A thoroughly charming 
story. It sparkles from first to last with interesting situations and 
dialogues that are full of sentiment. There is not a slow page.” 


6 


12 Copyrighted Novels by the Best Author^ 

Sf>e^oiaiv Priced, S12.00 

$ 1.00 down, $1.00 a month 

Read explanation of our Circulating Library plan on first page. 


Library of Novels No. II 

THE SENIOR LIEUTENANT’S WAGER, and Other Stories. 30 stories br 
80 of the foremost Catholic writers. 

A DAUGHTER OF KINGS. By Katharine Tynan Hinkson. “The book is 
most enjoyable.” 

THE WAY THAT LED BEYOND. By J. Harrison. “The story does not 
drag, the plot is well worked out, and the interest endures to the very 
last page.” 

CORINNE’S VOW. By Mary T. Waggaman. With 16 full-page illustrations. 
“There is genuine artistic merit in its plot and life-story. It is full of 
vitality and action.” 

THE FATAL BEACON. By F. v. Brackel. “The story is told well nnd 
clearly, and has a certain charm that will be found interesting. The prin- 
cipal characters are simple, good-hearted people, and the heroine’s high 
sense of courage impresses itself upon the reader as the tale proceeds.” 

THE MONK’S PARDON : An Historical Romance of the Time of Philip IV. 
of Spain. By Raoul de Navery. “A story full of stirring incidents and 
written in a lively, attractive style.” 

PERE MONNIER’S WARD. By Walter Lecky. “The characters are life- 
like and there is a pathos in the checkered life of the heroine. Pere 
Monnier is a memory that will linger.” 

TRUE STORY OF MASTER GERARD. By Anna T. Sadlier. “One of the 
mos<- thoroughly original and delightful romances ever evolved from the 
pen of a Catholic writer.” 

THE UNRAVELING OF A TANGLE. By Marion A. Taggart. With four 
full-page illustrations. “This story tells of the adventures of a young 
American girl, who, in order to get possession of a fortune left her by an 
uncle, whom she had never seen, goes to France.” 

THAT MAN’S DAUGHTER. By Henry M. Ross. “A well-told story of 
American life, the scene laid in Boston, New York and California. It is 
very interesting.” 

FABIOLA’S SISTER. (A companion volume to Cardinal Wiseman’s “Fa- 
biola.”) Adapted by A. C. Clarke. “A book to read — a worthy sequel 
to that masterpiece, ‘Fabiola.’ ” 

THE OUTLAW OF CAMARGUE: A Novel. By A. de Lamothe. “A capital 
novel with plenty of go in it.” 


7 


12 


Copyrighted Novels by the Best Authors 

Nkt Priced, $12.00 

$1.00 down, $1.00 a month 

Read explanation of our Circulating Library plan on first page. 


Library of Novels No. Ill 

"NOT A JUDGMENT.” By Grace Keon. "Beyond doubt the best Catholic 
novel of the year.” 

THE RED INN OF ST. LYPHAR. By Anna T. Sadlier. "A story of 
stirring times in France, when the sturdy Vendeans rose in defence of 
country and religion.” 

HER FATHER’S DAUGHTER. By Katharine Tynan Hinkson. "So 
dramatic and so intensely interesting that the reader will find it difficult 
to tear himself away from the story.” 

OUT OF BONDAGE. By M. Holt. “Once his book becomes known it will 
be read by a great many.” 

MARCELLA GRACE. By Rosa Melholland. Mr. Gladstone called this 
novel a masterpiece, 

THE CIRCUS-RIDER’S DAUGHTER. By F. v. Brackel. This work has 
achieved a remarkable success for a Catholic novel, for in less than a year 
three editions were printed. 

CARROLL DARE. By Mary T. Waggaman. Illustrated. “A thrilling story, 
with the dash of horses and the clash of swords on every side.” 

DION AND THE SIBYLS. By Miles Keon. “Dion is as brilliantly, as 
accurately and as elegantly classical, as scholarly in style and diction, as 
fascinating in plot and as vivid in action as Ben Hur.” 

HER BLIND FOLLY. By H. M. Ross. A clever story with an interesting 
and well-managed plot and many striking situations. 

MISS ERIN. By M. E. Francis. “A captivating tale of Irish life, redolent 
of genuine Celtic wit, love and pathos.” 

MR. BILLY BUTTONS. By Walter Lecky. “The figures who move in 
rugged grandeur through these pages are as fresh and unspoiled in their 
way as the good folk of Drumtochty.” 

CONNOR D’ARCY’S STRUGGLES. By Mrs. W. M. Bertholds. “A story 
of which the spirit is so fine and the Catholic characters so nobly con- 
ceived.” 


8 


Continiiaiiioii Lxibuauy 


YOU SUBSCRIBE FOR FOUR NEW 
NOVELS A YEAR, TO BE MAILED TO 
YOU AS PUBLISHED, AND RECEIVE 
BENZIGER’S MAGAZINE FREE. 


Each year we publish four new novels by the best Cath- 
olic authors. These novels are interesting beyond the 
ordinary — not religious, but Catholic in tone and feeling. 
They are issued in the best modern style. 

We ask you to give us a standing order for these novels. 
The price is $1.25, which will be charged as each volume is 
issued, and the volume sent postage paid. 

As a special inducement for giving us a standing order 
for the novels, we shall include free a subscription to 
Benziger's Magazine, Benziger's Magazine is recognized 
as the best and handsomest Catholic periodical published, 
and we are sure will be welcomed in every library. The 
regular price of the Magazine is $2.00 a year. 

Thus for $5.00 a year — paid $1.25 at a time — you will get 
four good books and receive in addition a year’s subscription 
to Bcnzige/s Magazine. The Magazine will be continued 
from year to year, as long as the standing order for the 
novels is in force, which will be till countermanded. 


'THK KAMOUS 


ROUND TABLE SERIES 


4 VOIvUNIES, S6.00 


60 OKNTS DOWN; 60 OKNTTS -A. MONTH 

On payment of 50 cents you get the books and a free subscription to 

Benziger’s Magazine 

The Greatest Stories by the foremost Catholic Writers in the World 

With Portraits of the Authors, Sketches of their Lives, and a List of 
their Works. Four exquisite volumes, containing the masterpieces of 36 of the 
foremost writers of America, England, Ireland, Germany, and France. Each 
story complete. Open any volume at random and you will find a great story 
to entertain you. 


SPECIAL OEEER 


In order to place this fine collection of stories in every home, we make 
the following special offer: Send us 50 cents and the four fine volumes will be 
sent to you immediately. Then you pay 50 cents each month until $6.00 has 
been paid. 


LIBRARY OK 


SHORT STORIES 


BY A BRILLIANT ARRAY OF CATHOLIC AUTHORS 
Original Stories by 33 Writers 

Four Handsome Volumes and Benziger’s Magazine for a Year at the 

Special Price of $5.00 

50 CENTS DOWN; 50 CENTS A MONTH 


You get the books at once, and have the use of them while making easy 
payments. Send us only 50 cents, and we will forward the books at once; 
50 cents entitles you to immediate possession. No further payment need be 
made for a month; afterwards you pay 50 cents a month. 


STORIKS BY 


Anna T. Sadlier 
Mary E. Mannix 
Mary T. Waggaman 
Jerome Harte 
Mary G. Bonesteel 
Magdalen Rock 
Eugenie Uhlrich 
Alice Richardson 
Katharine Jenkins 
Mary Boyle O’Reilly 
Clara Mulholland 


Agnes M. Rowe 
Julia C. Walsh 
Madge Mannix 


H. J. Carroll 


Leigh Gordon Giltner 
Eleanor C. Donnelly 


Teresa Stanton 


Theo. Gift 


Margaret E. Jordan 


Grace Keon 
Louisa Emily Dobree 


Mary Catherine Crowley 
Katherine Tynan-Hinkson 
Sallie Margaret O’Malley 
Emma Howard Wight 


Marion Ames Taggart 
Maurice Francis Egan 
Mary F. Nixon-Roulet 
Mrs. Francis Chadwick 
Catherine L. Meagher 
Anna Blanche McGill 


Rev. T. J. Livingstone, S.J. 


10 


goo PAGES 


500 ILLUSTRATIONS 


A ORRAT OFFRR 

THE LIFE OF OUR LORD 

— A.]srr> - 

SAVIOUR JESUS CHRIST 

AND OF HIS VIRGIN MOTHER MARY 

FROM THE ORIGINAL OF 

Iv. C. BUSINOKR, IvIv.D. 

BY 

Rev. RICHARD BRENNAN, LL.D. 


Quarto, half morocco, full gilt side, gilt edges, 900 pages, 
500 illustrations in the text and 32 full-page 
illustrations by 
M. KKURRSTKIN 


PRICE, . NET $10.00 

Easy Payment Plan 
$1.00 DOWN, $1.00 A MONTH 

Mail $1.00 to-day and the book will be shipped to you 
immediately. Then you pay $1.00 a month 
till $10.00 is paid. 

This is not only a Life of Christ and of His Blessed 
Mother, but also a carefully condensed history of God’s 
Church from Adam to the end of the world in type, prophecy 
and fulfilment, it contains a popular dogmatic theology and 
a real catechism of perseverance, filled with spiritual food 
for the soul. 


11 




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